Black Butterflies
by Lakelis
Summary: She worked with poisons and she was a detective. Now, how was it she had a sample of the poison that turned him into a kid? Chapter 9 is up! OCs , possible OOCness later, R&R please?
1. The name's Papillon

Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan/Case Closed in any way or manner

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_There was a superstition a long time ago. They said that if a black butterfly touched someone, they'd die. I never believed it, but whenever I'd hear it, I'd always think about the tattoo etched into my skin…_

A pair of dark chocolate eyes gazed into a cup of some form of juice, although it didn't look very safe to drink. A young boy looked up into the cup with a curious expression.

"What's that?" he questioned his sapphire eyes glimmering with curiosity. He pointed with one small finger at the cup.

"It's poison," and now a gloved hand placed the concoction far out of the boy's reach. One couldn't be too careful. "Shouldn't you be with your um…parent?"

"He'll just tell me I'm in the way," the boy pouted slightly. "And I don't know where sis is…"

"Well, you shouldn't be _here_. Almost everything here is poisonous," a gloved hand picked up a packet of white powder. "Or at least it is in certain doses."

"Really? Is the stuff in there poisonous?" the boy pointed at a slightly wrinkled paper bag, like the ones grocery markets gave out.

"Oh, well…you wouldn't want to eat it," a red leather glove went into the bag and removed a plastic container full of mice. "They're my control subjects, but if you want to play with them for now, you can."

"They're so small!" the boy looked at the rodents, some sleeping others staring, one gave into its curiosity and ran up to the boy. Small red eyes gazed into the sapphire ones. "What are they for?"

"I use them to test my antidotes," the answer was blunt and brutal. "To see if they work."

"You make antidotes? That's cool!" the child smiled.

"It's my job. All the poisons on that wall have no cure," caramel hair was swept back into a ponytail. "So outside of detective work, I find cures to them."

"You're a detective too?" glowing eyes now gazed at the young woman. "I wanna be a detective when I grow up too!"

"Hah, you'll be just as good as that Kudo kid," there was a clinking of glass as the girl removed some unknown substances and placed them onto the counter. Then she placed a pair of goggles over her eyes. "I'm just a fill-in until he finally decides to show his sorry hide again."

"Ah! You mean Shinichi?" the boy gave a wide grin. Chocolate eyes glanced at the small child.

"You know him?"

"Yeah, sis always talks about him, and sometimes he calls us!"

"I see…well, next time you see him, tell him to hurry up and get back here," the woman began to mix the thick substances. She placed the mixture over a flame and it slowly began to thin itself. "From Akai Papillon."

"Okay…" there was a small thought in the boy's mind. He'd heard the name Papillon before, but he didn't remember from where. "I'll tell him!"

"Conan! There you are!" another girl came into the room. She was taller than Papillon, and probably just as old. "Sorry if he was bothering you."

"No trouble at all," there were more clinking noises as the brunette took a flask off the fire. "Feel free to--!"

"Papillon!" an officer ran into the room. "There's been another murder, and we need you on the case!"

"Another one? How many murders does Tokyo get?!" the detective scowled. "I should go back to Osaka, it's actually calmer there."

"You're from Osaka?" Conan gasped. "Do you know Heiji?"

"Who _doesn't_ know Hattori Heiji?" there was a distant look in the girl's chocolate eyes. They glazed over with a familiar look that Conan made note of. "He's the chief's son, and he's just as good as that Kudo, if he's not better."

"Papillon!"

"Right," Papillon shed her white lab coat and removed the protective goggles over her eyes. "Though it'd probably make more sense to put one of the detectives on the case…"

"Not with poison, right?"

"Now _that_ you forgot to tell me," red leather met a jacket of the same material as the young woman exited the room. "Tell me where all this talk about murder was again?"

"Down a few blocks, nearby the supermarket," the officer claimed. "An investigator is already there."

"Good," and the girl stuffed a single hand into her pocket and removed a key with a large jeweled butterfly keychain. "Let's see if Kudo _finally_ decides to show up."

It was strange, seeing the change in character at the mention of poison. Suddenly Papillon seemed more aggressive about going, or at least, more willing to go. Her eyes flared wildly with passion and hate at the same time once before she left the room.

"Wait, can she drive?" suddenly the question seemed more important than the fact that the detective was already gone.

"Oh, Papillon? She rides a motorcycle," the officer shrugged. "I think it's dangerous, but she's still in one piece."

He said more, but Conan was no longer paying attention. He looked at the wall of poisons with no cures. There were labels on many of them with the ingredients and the source of the poison. But one in particular stood out to the boy.

"_Apotoxin-4869 (APTX4869) ingredients: unknown source: unknown…_" the boy read the words carefully. "_Effect:, untraceable poison, causes death. If diluted or on rare occasion reverts consumer several years. 100 fatal on small children. Priority cure._"

He couldn't believe his eyes. Someone had managed to get a sample of the poison the men in black coats had used on him. Something struck the boy as odd, but he kept it to himself. There was no need to reveal his identity then.

Meanwhile, several blocks away, Papillon turned into a parking lot, her motorcycle roaring. As soon as it was safe to do so, the girl got off the sleek red vehicle and removed her crimson helmet. Sure enough, there was a crime scene investigation unit examining the seemingly uninjured corpse. Uninjured outside of all the blood from when it hit the floor.

"Excuse me, sorry officer, gotta get through," the girl pushed her way to the deceased. She found a middle aged woman with dark hair gazing up into the sky with eyes that would never see again. "Twenty-six?"

"Twenty-eight," the inspector replied while carefully examining the pale skin. "Poisoning we think."

"Hmm…how long?"

"Two hours maybe? She was thrown off the roof not long ago," the inspector claimed. "There are witnesses over there."

Sure enough, two terrified young boys, no older than twelve or thirteen were being questioned. Papillon nodded and moved over to the youths.

"Hey, can you leave us alone for a while?" the detective tapped the police officer questioning the two boys. He glanced at the caramel haired girl and nodded before moving away. Now deep chocolate eyes glanced back at the boys. "Hi, I'm Papillon. I need to ask you a few questions if that's okay with you."

"U-uh-h-h…huh…" one of the two shivered. He was an American, his accent marked him just as boldly as his hair and eye color. "W-w-we didn't d-do anyth-thing…"

"Shh, it's okay, I know. You see, I'm an expert on murders involving poison, and I know that the woman over there was poisoned. I know you two didn't do anything," there was a soothing quality in her voice for some reason. Perhaps it was because she herself was closer to their age. "I know this is really scary, so if you don't want to answer, just tell me okay?"

"O…ok-kay…" the second boy was smaller, but his Japanese was easier to understand.

"Alright, did you know the lady over there?" Papillon was careful to use words they knew. It made her speech sound more familiar, and it probably calmed them down a little.

"N-no…we were j-just w-w-walking h-home from the s-super market…" the American boy responded. His blue eyes were shimmering with fear. Papillon gave them a moment to gather their wits again.

"What I'm going to ask you might be really hard to answer, so just calm down and try okay?" she knelt down to their level, looking both of them in the eyes (not at the same time of course) and placing her hands on one of their shoulders. "Can you tell me what you saw?"

For a long moment, Papillon didn't think she was going to get an answer. There was silence, and suddenly one of the boys burst into tears.

"S-someone was o-on th-th-the roof a-and h-he p-p-pushed the lady off!" the smaller one wailed. "And…and then, th-this r-really pretty l-lady w-with r-really long h-hair…sh-she got into th-this b-black c-car a-a-and d-drove a-away…"

"I see," Papillon nodded slightly, acknowledging that she knew the reason for whoever it was throwing a body off the roof. "Do you remember what color her hair was?"

"B-blonde…" the smaller boy shivered. "A-and sh-she had g-g-green eyes."

"Alright, thanks. That's all I need to ask you," Papillon frowned internally. There was something off about the situation. The murderer didn't seem to care if they were found out. She got up and moved back towards the body.

"The impact messed up some of the stuff pretty badly," somebody said. "I can't be sure what kind of poison was used."

"Maybe a Yew seed?" Papillon gazed into the unseeing eyes. "Or maybe lots and lots of chloroform…"

"Are you just guessing?"

"Well, I haven't gotten much closer than three feet within the body you know," and now the girl in red leather knelt beside the lifeless body. "Now I can make better guesses."

There was silence from the young detective as she stared down upon the woman. Her eyes were glazed over, and there was some swelling in the face. Some sort of rash on the throat was apparent as well. Papillon paused slightly, her chocolate eyes narrowing. It was almost as if…

"Did anyone think to open her mouth?" the girl suddenly questioned. One of the inexperienced team members fumbled to pry open the now stiff muscles. Sure enough, the tonsils and the throat were inflamed. "…you idiots…"

"What?"

"What? What? You idiots! You should have checked her mouth before calling _me_ over here. She wasn't poisoned at all!" angry eyes flared at the men. They had been burning with passion earlier. "Does this woman have allergic reactions to any kind of food?"

"Oh, she's deathly allergic to…seafood," the officer flipped through a pad of notes. "And she's very sensitive to it."

"Idiots, check her stomach for any traces of seafood, even the slightest bit could have set off an allergic reaction. You know what that means of course?" Papillon placed her hands on her hips and then leaned forward. "She died of an allergic reaction, there was no _point_ in calling me out here."

Without another word the girl turned on her heel and began to walk away, the hard heels of her crimson boots clicking against the hard asphalt. Irritation jerked her mind as she kicked her leg over her large motorcycle and insert the keys.

"Sometimes, I wonder if the chief even looks at who he hires," the detective growled to herself before speeding off. The sight of a black Porsche following her made the girl tense up. Perhaps it was someone she knew playing a prank. Though nobody in their right mind played pranks on her. Well, outside of Heiji, but he was in Osaka.

_Well two can play at that game_, Papillon accelerated and swerved around a corner before accelerating again. A high pitched squealing sound crashed into the girl's ears. She heard it loud and clear. Whoever was stalking her finally got the message. _Can't beat that, can ya?_

The girl turned her covered head and found that whoever was in the car probably wasn't planning on leaving anytime soon. She debated whether or not it would be safe to remove her helmet. They might have weapons, though a biking helmet wouldn't make any difference to a shotgun to the face…

Suddenly, just as soon as the girl removed the hard helmet encasing her head, the car backed up and vanished. Papillon let out a sigh of relief. She was bound to have a few enemies as long as she was a detective. She wondered if Kudo was even still alive.

Chocolate eyes glanced around the corner, making sure that the Porsche was gone before the owner of said eyes decided to creep back to her vehicle and kicking over it with one leg again.

"I'm not suited for this," she said, feeling her stomach begin to churn. Sickness began to tear at her insides again and the detective turned her head away before she could ruin the shiny metal on her bike with vomit. Papillon took a rag out of her pocket and wiped her mouth before starting up her bike again, this time slowly going towards where she started.

Meanwhile, many miles away, a certain green eyed detective was receiving a phone call from Tokyo.

"Hattori Heiji speaking…" the boy answered the phone. "What is it?"

"Hey, do you know anyone that works in Tokyo?" Conan's voice crackled to life over the phone. Green eyes blinked slightly.

"Huh? Tokyo?" there was a pause. "Can't you be more specific?"

"Like, a girl that works with poison? With brown hair?"

"Oh! Yeah, that's Papillon. She's only there for a week every month now since you've been…well, you know," Heiji thought for a while. "What about her?"

"She has a sample of the poison that those guys in black used!" Conan hissed over the phone. Heiji could feel his stomach drop at what his rival was implying.

"There's no way. No way at all," Heiji fiddled with the phone slightly. If she was involved with them…

"Then how did she get the poison?"

"Maybe one of them just dropped it or something. Papillon's not exactly the easiest person to outrun. I mean, she rides a motorcycle for crying out loud!"

The boy didn't want to say that the girl was part of the Black Organization. There was such a low chance…he shook his head. Papillon was ruthless in investigations, but other than that, she could be sweeter than anyone.

"We can't really be too careful you know…"

"She hates listening to people though, why would she even bother with the Black Organization?" Heiji muttered. "But she's probably looking for a cure for that poison."

"Yeah, and that's why she has so much of it," the tone was flat from the other side of the phone. "I'm gonna keep an eye on her."

"She's coming back tomorrow or the day after," the green eyed detective paused for a moment. "She's not exactly thrilled at going to Tokyo so often."

"Then _you_ keep an eye on her," the shrunken detective replied.

"Yeah, right," Heiji frowned. "Like I _really_ want to follow her. She's kinda scary when she gets mad, and I can only keep an eye on her during school."

"She goes to the same school as you?"

"Yeah, same class, and we normally go up to the roof to eat lunch with Kazuka. Papillon likes to bust the drug users up there, and it's nice," the boy found his mistake too late.

"You eat _lunch_ with her?!" Conan growled.

"Well, it's not like I can avoid working on cases with her, and she can really grow onto you. Well, if she likes you enough not to flip you," the detective added as an afterthought.

"Right, keep an eye on her, alright?"

"Alright, alright, I'll try," Heiji sighed. "I'm telling you though, I won't find anything."

With these words the boy hung up, ending the connection. He wondered exactly _when_ Kudo had met Papillon anyways. An entertaining thought buzzed into the detective's mind.

Papillon would probably flip Kudo when she met him.

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A/N: Give me feedback! I need feedback! And if you can figure out who "the pretty lady with really long hair" is, I'll give you a big virtual smile.

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	2. She's bored

Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan/Case Closed in any way or manner

A/N: YES I know that Akai is a very masculine name, YES I know there's ALREADY an Akai in Case Closed, YES I realize that Akai means red and not black, NO, nobody told me to put this here, I just thought I'd say it first.

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The ride back to Osaka hadn't been pleasant. She'd spent the entire weekend on her motorcycle and her butt was _really_ not happy about it. The girl settled in her seat behind Heiji and she put her head in her arms. Not. Happy. 

"You okay, Papillon?" a green eyed detective nudged the girl. She only made a noise and swatted at the dark skinned hand. "Papillon?"

"Nnnh, leave me alone…" she groaned. "I'm tired and hating Tokyo a lot more."

"Well, at least you won't have to go back for another month," Heiji tried to make things seem just a little brighter.

"When is Kudo getting his butt back?" Papillon grit her teeth. "I like it here! Outside of your dad being all 'Grr! Be better than everyone!' I can deal with it here!"

"What happened this time?"

"I got back about an hour ago," the detective replied. "Why don't you go?"

"I've got to deal with everything here," Heiji sighed. "I'll go with you next time if it makes you feel better."

"I probably won't…" a loud groan escaped from the girl's mouth. "I want to go home, and school hasn't even started."

"Have you been alright though?"

"Huh? What do you mean…by…? Oh!" realization clicked in the girl's head. "That's been getting better. How are you doing in your search for Kudo?"

"Um…" Heiji paused, not sure about how to respond. "Not too good."

Papillon swore softly under her breath. She _really_ wanted to stop going to Tokyo. It was tiring, going all the way from Osaka to Tokyo month after month, and it got lonely being in a tiny apartment room all day with little to no company outside of the relatives of the deceased or the ones who were stolen from.

"Stupid Kudo…" she mumbled before closing her eyes, only to be awaken twenty seconds later by a loud bell ringing within the class. "AAAGH!"

"Hey, don't worry, all you have to do for now is listen to the teacher ramble about how great Sherlock Holmes is," Heiji waved his hand nonchalantly. Papillon scarcely held back a laugh.

"Still think Ellery Queen is better than Sir Conan Doyle?" the girl tossed her head backwards. "You might be right about that, but my favorite will always be John Dickson Carr!"

"What's so great about him?"

"He's the master of 'locked room mystery' of course! The thought that the scene is seemingly impossible, but somehow it's not! I love trying to crack the case before I'm done reading," the girl smiled happily. "Though I do like Holmes and Queen…I'd never want to meet Sir Henry Merrivale. He's _way_ to bad tempered."

"Huh, the way you talk about Merrivale makes me wonder why you even like him."

"Detectives are detectives, no matter how ill tempered they are," and the caramel haired girl winked at Heiji before turning her head to pay attention to the teacher walking into the door.

"Stand!" the command rose through the classroom. Without another word, Papillon pushed herself to her feet with minimal trouble and awaited for the next command. "Bow!"

And now the girl felt herself bow automatically. She was too tired to go against it, and she was already in trouble as it was. The second that she returned to her seat, she nudged Heiji lightly. They always got away with it.

"Pst, Heiji, look," she produced a small quantity of white pills. The boy glanced at the label. It was as Kudo had said. She had the poison. "Someone left a few bottles, so I managed to swipe some. It's got a really high kill rate, and I can never find traces of the poison after that…"

"R-really?" Heiji whispered back.

"Yeah, but the really weird thing is that when I tested it, sometimes the mice wouldn't die, they'd just shrink until they were really, really small," the girl made a fake measurement with her forefinger and her thumb. "And what's really scary is that it would always kill the really little ones. Come by after school, okay? I really wanna find a cure to it."

"Right…"

They almost paid attention until the lunch bell rang. Papillon immediately leapt to her feet and ran for the roof, ignoring Heiji's call for her to wait. The detective gave a deep sigh.

"That girl hates being in here…" he sighed. Sure enough, he found the girl leaning against the railing staring at the sky with her loose change scattered around her hands. She never ate after she came back from Tokyo.

"Papillon, you're not gonna eat?" the boy questioned.

"Where's Kazuha?" she questioned. "I kinda wanted to talk to her."

"I actually don't know. I called her the other day, and she didn't answer," Heiji paused. "I think she might be sick or something. Not really sure."

"You should really ask her out if you like her so much," the statement caught the emerald eyed detective off guard.

"W-what? You can't be serious!" he laughed. "You must be in a better mood already."

"I am serious, Heiji. You two are like, meant for each other," the girl chuckled and began to flip her change into the air, catching it on her gloved thumb. "Really, ask her out. I won't stop bothering you until you do."

"That's like asking my little sister out on a date."

"No it's not, it's like asking your girlfriend out," Papillon flipped the coin again. Once more launching it high into the air and catching it on her thumb. "You liked her ever since you saw her in Kyoto, right?"

"Well, I was little," Heiji felt a blush creeping to his cheeks. "It's not anything like that you know…"

"Oh come on, it doesn't take a detective to figure out that you like her," again the coin was tossed high into the air, but this time it went over the railing and Papillon wasn't able to catch it. "Darn, I missed it."

"That's a huge waste of money you know," emerald eyes watched as the coin landed in the dirt far below where the two sat.

"Like you care? You're freaking rich, Heiji," Papillon picked up another coin from the many scattered around her and began to toss it again. "Which reminds me, are you ever going to invite me over to your house? You've been to mine a million times, and it can't be fun. My puny apartment isn't getting anything new, and the landlady's beginning to think you live there."

"Well your landlady's insane isn't she?" Heiji questioned while unwrapping his lunch.

"Kinda, I guess…" Papillon chuckled. "But I want to see what your house is like."

"It's…different from yours," the boy replied. "There's more…space."

"It'd be hard not to have more space," chocolate eyes glimmered with laughter. "There's not even enough space for a closet in my little place, and all I have are tank tops and jeans."

"What about your jackets?"

"Those don't count. I only have like, two, and they go on my bed, always."

"Well if it isn't the detective dweebs…"

"Oh, whoop-di-frikkin' do. Like this was what I needed today," Papillon grumbled angrily to herself. "The three stooges! Oh joy!"

"No need to make it that sarcastic," Heiji however had not suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.

"Well, I'm _so_ sorry that I'm not in a good mood," Papillon rolled her eyes. "Okay, so what do you want Akira?"

The dark haired boy rolled his eyes and leaned forward. "Well, you see, it's much easier to pick on you when you don't let that martial artist girl fight for you."

"Just because it's easier to let her fight doesn't mean that I can't," Papillon shrugged. "I'm pretty sure Heiji's the only one that can't do anything without a stick."

"Hey! That's not—!"

"I'm kidding," Papillon shed her jacket and dropped her coins onto the solid ground beneath her feet. "But I'm not kidding about being able to kick these guys' asses."

"Masaru, you go ahead!" Akira shoved a lighter haired boy towards the girl with untamed curls. "Let's see what she can actually do."

"You're actually serious too," Papillon sighed and braced herself. "C'mon you wuss, go ahead and hit me."

Heiji had seen his friend get this way before. She'd mock her opponent, irritating them with insults and her razor tongue, then they'd attack and…

Masaru threw a punch at the girl before the green-eyed detective could finish his thoughts. The blow never connected to its target. Instead, Papillon sidestepped, grasped the boy's arm and wrenched it up with a surprisingly large amount of force, and if she had not been so short, perhaps it could have lifted the boy off the ground.

"Little girls don't play nice," she chuckled darkly. Then without another word the boy was thrown backwards and Akira looked infuriated.

"Why I ought to…"

"Ought to what? Send the big bad American after me?" Papillon taunted him mercilessly. "C'mon little Andy, show me what you've got."

The second boy was more careful. He circled around the girl for a period of time before striking at what seemed to be an opening before launching his own attack. Papillon had more difficulty with the larger boy. Her opponent grazed her arm with the twisting blow, but Papillon managed to avoid the brunt of the blow. She knocked the boy's feet out from beneath him and shoved him backwards as well, causing him to stumble and fall.

"You wanna try Aki—ugh!" Papillon hadn't fully turned when the blow caught her. Papillon staggered backwards, gasping for the air she had so suddenly lost. "Y-you son of a…"

"Hmph, you can't win all of them," Akira sneered. Papillon glared daggers of hate into his body while regaining her own senses. There was churning in her stomach again, but she ignored it. Without any warning whatsoever, the heel of Papillon's boot met with Akira's chin.

The boy's head snapped upwards, but he seemed to be relatively unharmed. He launched himself at Papillon, knocking the still shaky detective to the ground. Heiji now intervened, throwing Akira off the caramel haired girl before he had a chance to strike again. The two wrestled briefly, but Akira was clearly the more experienced.

Papillon grabbed onto the back of Heiji's shirt and pulled him backwards. The detective was caught off guard as his friend removed him from the brawl.

"I don't want to get in more trouble than I'm already in," Papillon made a motion with her head towards the door. "I heard someone coming."

"Yeah, right! You just don't want to fight me, you little--!" Akira never got a chance to finish that sentence. Papillon was on him at once, deep chocolate eyes fierce and unforgiving. She dragged him up from the floor, placing him on his feet.

"It's more threatening when you stand up and say stupid things," Papillon's voice was chilly no//w. She walked back to her scattered coins and sat down just as the door to the roof was thrown open. The principal stood there, livid as ever.

"Papillon! What's this about you being gone for _another_ week?" the large man snarled angrily. His face was contorted with obvious dislike for the young detective. Papillon removed a note from her pocket.

"Like I said, business matters to attend to," she held the paper out towards the principal. "Signed by chiefs of both the Tokyo and the Osaka police departments, a legal excuse for my absence at school."

"Give me that!" the principal now snatched the paper from the girl's hands. True to her words, the slip of paper was signed by both the chief of the Osaka and Tokyo's police departments. "You're still responsible for the tests and the work. Due tomorrow!"

"Hmph, it's just like you, trying to get me kicked out," the girl tossed her head, caramel hair sweeping through the air as she did so. "Maybe I'm a little delinquent, but that's not much of a problem if I keep the impressive grades, or the school's great reputation."

"Um…Papillon…that's not a good idea…" Heiji started. Chocolate eyes twinkled with rebellion, but gave a feeling of childishness as well.

"This isn't a game. You're lucky enough as it is that we don't expel you."

"I realize that, and I also realize that if you expel me, you'll lose one of your famous detective kids," the girl bowed deeply. "It's your choice on how this is done, monsieur."

Heiji saw the man's face turn red, angry and fierce, however, he also knew that what his friend said was true. He wondered why she was so rebellious against the rules sometimes, though she did enjoy busting the occasional drug user. Papillon looked thoughtful for a moment.

"The bell's going to ring any second now, so I'm going to head off to class like the good little girl I should be," but she was mocking in the way she spoke. "Coming, Heiji?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah," the boy followed after the girl, an apologetic smile on his face as he passed by the principal. Upon entering the classroom and seating themselves, there was a loud ringing noise filling the room. Heiji felt a sense of disappointment again. Papillon had counted the seconds to the lunch period again.

"Too bad he'll never get rid of me, at least, not until I graduate," the detective girl leaned back in her chair. "He should be looking for a way to get me out of school early instead of expelling me. I'm a detective for god's sake, I find the flaws I need to."

"Yeah, but…why do you do that?" Heiji questioned. "You don't really get anything out of it."

"I don't, but I guess it gives me some satisfaction, knowing I beat him…again," a smile graced the youth's features. It wasn't a real smile, but there it was all the same. "I guess that's how it is, living like I do."

"Oh…right," memories of the girl telling her story about why she lived alone. Why her parents were never there.

"At any rate, I think we have to pay attention," and chocolate eyes gave a flick upwards towards the board. "It's our ever beloved sub…"

"Oh great. Nakamura, the _last_ person I wanted to see today," Heiji rolled his eyes, preparing to be more bored than ever before.

"Today we will be doing…"

_Yeah, the most boring substitute…ever,_ Papillon thought as her mind drifted involuntarily to sleep.

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A/N: Yay! Chapter two! As a side note, there's been ONE review so far! gasp Okay yeah, I'm sad. Make me feel better by reviewing! If you guess the answer to my question in the first chapter's note thing, then I'll um...I'll TRY to draw Heiji for you? 


	3. Back to Tokyo again

Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan/Case Closed in any way or manner

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Four weeks had passed by all too quickly. Once again Papillon was packing her bags and throwing them haphazardly over the back of her motorcycle. Month after month had passed in this fashion, and the detective was no longer getting any rest during her stay in the other city.

"Thanks for all the help, Heiji," the girl called while settling herself over a motorcycle. "I'll see you next week."

"When you get back, I'll bet Kazuha will want to drag you out somewhere again."

"Well, I'll find a way to make you come too," Papillon replied. She insert her keys into her motorcycle and revved up the engine. The bike roared to life in an instant. "Anything I need to know about Mori?"

"Um…he's stubborn?" Heiji shrugged. "He's not gonna be um…exactly like he is in the newspaper, let's say that."

"And that means…what?"

"Um…you'll see when you meet him," the boy chuckled nervously. Papillon sighed.

"Can't wait till the next Saturday I'm here," the girl now tossed her hair away from her face. "Make sure to call me if there's a change of plans."

"Yeah, like I'm going to forget to call _you_ of all people," the boy rolled his eyes. "See ya."

"Buh-bye!" and suddenly the girl was accelerating down the street, slowly shrinking until she became a dot on the horizon. Eventually, there was nothing more to be said, and Heiji simply turned away.

"Now all I have to do is find a way to keep my mom thinking anything romantic about this entire vacation thing," the boy shrugged and began to walk the short distance to his house.

Meanwhile, a young boy was fiddling with the back of his bowtie.

"Conan, are you fiddling with your tie again?" an attractive girl knelt beside him. "You're always playing with it."

"Haha…that's because…um…" the boy couldn't think of an explanation. "It's got stuff on it, so…"

"Well, just don't rip it or anything," the girl replied.

"Don't worry, I won't rip it, Ran!' and a childish grin found itself on the boy's face.

"Where's dad, anyways?" Ran blinked. "He's supposed to meet this Papillon person too…"

"Isn't uncle always late?"

"Yeah, you're probably right," the martial artist shrugged. "Well, I guess it can't be helped. He'll show up eventually…"

"Hey, it's you two again!' a motorcyclist on a steed of red steel appeared, her motor still sputtering. "What are you two doing here?"

Ran turned her head, but couldn't distinguish what was behind the dark glass of the thick and hard helmet the rider was wearing.

"Um…who are you?"

"You don't recognize me?" a pair of red leather gloves removed the plastic protection and a wave of caramel hair rippled out. "It's me, Akai Papillon."

"Aah! You're here!" Ran gasped while looking about to see if her father had returned. "S-sorry, dad's not here yet."

"Eh? You're the Sleeping Kogoro's daughter?" chocolate eyes blinked rapidly, trying to shake off the surprise. "I…was actually really not expecting that…"

Papillon glanced around. "Do you think he'll be here anytime soon or should I get off my bike before I look like a retard?"

"I'm pretty sure he'll be here soon," there was a slight pause. "But…um…you probably should get off…just in case?"

"Meaning he won't be coming soon," the girl leapt off the shining metal transport and began to rummage in her bag. "Looks like I didn't bring that book for nothing."

"Eh?"

"I need something to do in that thing they call an apartment," Papillon made a face here. "There are a lot of things I don't like. TV is one of them."

"So, what'cha reading?" Conan questioned. Papillon smiled.

"Sherlock Holmes…again," the girl sighed. "He still hasn't lost his flare for being an oddity in himself."

"Oh! Which one is it?"

"My favorite of course," and now she produced an old and worn book. "_A Study in Scarlet._"

"Isn't that the first one?"

"You sure know your Sherlock Holmes," the girl flipped back to the first page, dust beginning to float around her face even as she opened the book. "You like him?"

"Yeah!" and there was a childish nod.

"You're really a lot like him," Papillon smiled down at the boy. "Cute kid."

"Um…like who?" Conan questioned, his eyes sparkling.

"Like that--!"

"Hey! Hey!" a familiar deep and gravelly voice cut into the girl's thoughts. Conan and Ran recognized it immediately. However, only when twin chocolate eyes glanced up to see who was coming did she recognize the owner.

"Ah! Kogoro," in an instant the book was closed and gone, the twinkle of merriment vanished from the girl's eyes, and all that was there was a mask of an unknown emotion. It was as though she was there and not there at the same time. "We have business to attend to."

"Who're you?" the man slurred slightly. Papillon sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose.

"Papillon, Akai Papillon," the detective introduced herself without much emotion.

"Akai…isn't that a boy's name?"

"I don't care," the girl snapped. "Let's crack down to business now. It's come to my knowledge that you have some documents that I need."

"Right," the man fumbled with the documents, dropping them on the ground. A few of the papers scattered onto the dirt covered floor. Papillon sighed and kneeled to gather them, her gloved hand nimbly plucking the papers without causing much disturbance to anything around it.

"Thanks," and she held out a single leather encased hand. "I'll be seeing you next time you come around to the police station."

"What?"

"Are any of the mice still alive?" Conan questioned.

"Um…I don't really know…" there was an awkward pause. "Nobody tells me anything when I head back up to Osaka."

Papillon knew they were most likely already dead. Either through poison or another reason. She'd never been one to deal with animals. However, the girl replaced herself on her valiant steel steed and insert her keys into the slot once more.

"Well, I'm off then," the girl gave a small wave and once more the monster beneath her gave an aggravated roar. It was disturbing how loud it could be. There was a shimmer of something interesting as the girl rode away. Only Conan noticed the sound of metal hitting the floor, and he was also the only one that saw that the large jewel butterfly had fallen off the girl's keychain.

"Hey, what's that?" the boy leaned over to pick up the insect of metal and precious stones, but pricked his finger on the pin. "OW!"

"What happened?" Ran questioned while rushing over to the boy.

"Something poked me on that," the boy pointed at the innocent butterfly on the floor. The dark haired girl went towards it, carefully lifting it from the floor.

"That's because it's a brooch…" she explained. "Who's is it?"

"It's Papillon's, right?" Conan questioned. "She had it on her keys last time."

"Oh! You're right!" there was an awkward pause here. "But why would she put a brooch on her keys?"

"I think I saw that before," the boy examined the brooch.

"Aaah! It's that famous butterfly brooch!" Ran nearly dropped the precious item upon her realization. "This thing is like, priceless!"

"Huh?" Conan examined it. Sure enough, it was the showcase item at the main office of Butterfly Jewelers. How the chocolate eyed detective got her hands on it was questionable.

"We should give it back, right?" the martial artist held the item out at arm's length, as though she expected it to attack her. "This thing is probably really important to her…"

"Y-yeah…" Conan stuttered. He was still unsure as to how the large jewel creature had fallen into the girl's hands.

When they walked into the police department, they saw that Papillon was in a panic, tossing items out of her purse, checking the more colorful ones occasionally before tossing them to the side.

"Crap! Crap! I can't lose that!" she exclaimed. Conan noted that her keys were set to one side, far away from everything else. "Don't tell me I dropped it! Crap, what'll I do when my mom finds out? She'll totally kill me…"

"Papillon?" Ran moved towards the girl. "What's wrong?"

"I lost something, and I could care less about it, but my mom…whoo boy," Papillon dumped the remaining items within her purse. There were many things that the average high-school girl should not have had within the impressive amount of items. Conan made a mental list of what he could see.

A cellphone, black on the front red on the back, fairly new. That was understandable. Most people didn't function well without a phone. A lock-pick kit lay somewhere within the jumble. Conan ignored it. It looked relatively unused. An MP4 player with a mike attached to it. Most likely for recording witness testimonies. And here he saw a bottle of medication, half empty. The child wondered what she was sick with.

Another odd thing was how Papillon had several different pill boxes and many cotton balls and such. She shifted through the items, but there were no self defense items. The most reasonable weapons Conan spotted within the mess were her keys, but even so it wouldn't do anything against someone who got too close. There was no mace, no taser, nothing.

"Um…are you looking for this?" Ran held out the brooch carefully. Papillon's eyes lit up at the sight of it.

"Oh my god, thank you so much!" the girl exclaimed while taking the brooch. "Oh god, my mom would have done something terrible if I lost this."

"Um…does your mom…hit you?" the dark haired martial artist was careful to tread on something so fragile.

"Oh no, my mom doesn't. She just can't live without seeing the brooch once in a while…"

"But then shouldn't she have it?" Conan questioned while staring upwards. It felt weird, seeing someone shorter than Ran towering above him.

"Conan! You shouldn't--!"

"Oh no, I understand. She's not allowed outside of the safe room though, and she can't have anything sharp," Papillon gave a slight huff. "So I'm stuck lugging the brooch around."

"Um…I don't mean to pry but…safe room?" Ran tread carefully.

"Oh you know, those rooms that haven't got anything that she can lift or hurt herself on," Papillon fixed the brooch onto her keys once more before placing them into her purse. "You know as a safety precaution. She's pretty likely to have violent fits nowadays."

There was an awkward silence as Papillon hastily stuffed everything back into her purse. As soon as that was done, she shed her leather jacket for a lab coat and placed eye protection once again.

"Thanks for returning it," she smiled softly. "I wouldn't have been able to find it myself."

"Oh no problem!" Ran smiled. "Say, how long are you going to be in Tokyo for?"

"A week," the answer was fairly flat. "Why?"

"Um…well, if you're not too busy, maybe I could show you around later…you know take you on a girl's night out," with this Ran smiled. Papillon decided that if the girl decided to be a murderer, her disarming smile would keep her out of trouble for sure.

"Well…er…sure," Papillon gave a half-hearted smile back. "But um…should you really leave the kid with your dad? No offense or anything, but his breath smelled like alcohol when I met him."

"Oh um…well…" there was a pause. "We can take Conan along too I guess."

"Well…what time should I meet you?"

"Maybe at like, seven?" Ran questioned.

"Alright, I'll see you then," Papillon checked her watch. Three-thirty. It wasn't too long to work, so she'd have to work with one of the poisons she had a lot of information on. Ran began to leave when Conan spoke up.

"Hey, sis, can I stay here until then?" he questioned brightly. The martial artist hesitated and glanced at Papillon who was picking her way through a shelf full of poisons.

"Um…you want to stay here?" she inquired. Conan nodded his head enthusiastically.

"Well…um…" Ran glanced up at Papillon who looked back and shrugged.

"I think he gets that he shouldn't get in the way," the detective shrugged. "He's a smart kid."

"Well…okay then…" Ran hesitated again, not wanting to leave Conan in such a dangerous place. "You know not to eat anything, right?"

"Uh-huh!" the small boy nodded enthusiastically. It wasn't until after Ran left that Papillon spoke again.

"Um…so, why did you want to hang around here?" she questioned. Conan glanced at her. "It's not that fun around here."

"Um…" multiple excuses ran through the child's head, each sounding more ridiculous than the last. "That is…um…I…"

"Nevermind. Hey, wanna see something cool?" Papillon gathered a large amount of various substances. "I always do this when nobody's looking if I get bored."

And she stuck a piece of magnesium into the flame, setting off a blindingly bright light. Conan really wondered how the fickle girl ever became a detective, and he seriously wondered if she ever found any cures to anything.

* * *

A/N: Whoo-hoo, chapter 3. I might be dead for a while, NaNoWriMo and all. Still only have one guess as to who the "pretty lady with really long hair" is? I'll give credit to katiesparks (my ONLY review...ee?) for guessing. You were close! (I was under the impression that the kids describing the "pretty lady with really long hair" had for a loooong time...) 


	4. Girl's night out

Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan/Case Closed in any way or manner

Disclaimer 2: I don't own "Only Hope" in any way or manner, and the version I used is by Mandy Moore.

* * *

"Okay, now carefully add a drop, not too much, okay?" Papillon directed the boy while watching very carefully. "Slowly, slowly, alright!"

The concoction before them fizzled and let off a ridiculous amount of fake fog. A pair of sapphire eyes twinkled in entertainment.

"Now we test it out," Papillon poured two glasses and stirred the fizzing creation before handing one to the young boy who sat with her. They put their glasses together before taking a sip from the bubbling potion.

"Wow! This is good!" Conan smiled and finished the rest of his cola.

"Yeah, I figured out how to make it a while ago," chocolate eyes gleamed with relief. She hadn't really expected the boy to like it very much after all the trouble they went through to make it. The door to the girl's office opened and revealed a cheerful Ran entering the room.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. "How's everything going?"

"Sis, sis, look! We made soda!" Conan showed his empty cup to prove it.

"Haha, wanna try some?" Papillon questioned while sipping at her own again.

"Um…"

"It's not poisonous," the caramel haired girl chuckled.

"Well…okay," and the detective was immediately pouring a glass at the martial artist's consent. She handed the cold fizzing drink to Ran with a smile. The girl drank some of the fizzing drink and noted the distinct difference in flavor from normal soda. "Wow!"

The three enjoyed the rest of the cola before Ran got up and gave a wide grin.

"Guess who's coming tomorrow?"

"Who?" two voices questioned at the same moment. Chocolate eyes glanced into sapphire ones and the two simply placed their gaze on Ran again.

"Heiji!"

"Oh my god! He's coming? Why?!" Papillon leapt to her feet. "Heiji? Why's he coming? Oh. My. God."

The detective girl immediately opened the documents given to her by Kogoro. She found her answer.

"He's one of the detectives on this case. No way," it was hard to contain her glee. "Yes! Heiji's coming!"

"You really like him…"

"He's my best friend for heaven's sake! I love him!" Papillon's eyes smiled in their own unique way. "Sweet, I'm not stuck by myself this week."

"Um…okay…" Ran paused. "So…"

"Oh, right, where are we going tonight anyways?" the detective questioned.

"How about…let's go to a restaurant today, and tomorrow we can take Heiji somewhere tomorrow?" Ran proposed. Papillon smiled and clapped her hands together softly.

"Sounds good," she agreed. "So, where to? I'll follow the cab!"

It had taken about twenty minutes for the group to reach the small eating facility. Papillon glanced up at the neon sign and smiled while walking into the small place. Loud music blared all around her and the smell of well cooked food floated to her nose. It was heaven.

"Wow, look at this place!" she exclaimed while exploring. "I like it."

"It's pretty popular at our school right now," Ran smiled. "It's a nice place, right?"

"Heck yeah!" the girl shouted over the pounding bass. "Wondrous, absolutely wondrous! The entire way through!"

The three settled in a spot towards the middle of the establishment. Better to be away from all the speakers booming with music. The three ordered their food and were began to talk. Conan was obediently listening with his fruit smoothie in his hands.

"So, how do you know Heiji?"

"We're classmates. He sits in front of me, and we eat lunch together with Kazuha most of the time," Papillon explained. "Oh, but I met him when his dad put me on a case that he was working with too. His dad's a psycho."

"What? Really?" Ran questioned. Conan could feel the corner of his mouth turn up slightly. She probably never said that in front of the man in question.

"Yeah, he expects everything outta me and Heiji when we work on cases together. Like this one time…" Papillon continued her story, Ran completely intrigued. Conan watched the changing facial expressions and noted that the girl changed her voice at every new character, imitating many of them almost perfectly.

"And finally Heiji gets the big picture and he just says, 'Oh! That's how he did it!'" Papillon finished in a perfect imitation of Heiji's voice, and quite possibly his facial expression.

"How'd you learn to do that?" Conan questioned. "You sounded just like big bro!"

"Oh, well, I'm the drama queen at our school, you know?" Papillon chuckled. "I've been doing acting workshops for a long time. I remember, I met that Kudo kid's mom before too."

"R-really?" Ran questioned. "H-how?"

"I went to America for a movie audition a few years back. I met Kudo's dad in the bookstore, he saw me reading his books…" Papillon shrugged. "I guess we just got on with each other, and so…yeah. I found out that Yukiko was a guest in the movie workshop, and I have to say, she is _good_."

"Which movie was it?" Conan asked.

"It was…an American movie, let's leave it at that," Papillon chuckled.

"Did you get a role?"

"Almost. I didn't sign the contract though," the detective waved her hands. "They'd have kept me until I was 18, and I can't spend my life wasting away in those crummy things."

"Ah, so do you want to be an actress?"

"No, not really. It's fun and all, but I'm not cut out for it," Papillon tilted her head back. "I can't _stand_ having the limelight all the time. Really."

_So why are you in drama?_ Conan thought. He took another sip of his smoothie.

"So have you been in any TV shows or anything like that?"

"Um…yeah, I'm supposed to show up as a guest star on some talk show soon," there was a slight shrug as the detective lifted her beverage o her lips. "Don't really know what it's about, but they're calling me out. Can't turn down the money though, gotta keep up with the bills and all that."

"You pay your own bills?"

"You could say that I'm a pretty independent person," the girl finished the small amount of ice left in her cup. "I've been helping out with work since I was thirteen. Managed to buy myself an apartment when I was fifteen too."

"Really? That's amazing!"

"You think so? I think it's funny," the glass was on the table again, drops of water sliding down the edge of the glass to the shiny wood beneath the glass. "I haven't taken a lot of big paying jobs in a while."

"Don't the police departments pay you?"

"Oh, heaven's no!" Papillon waved her hand. "This is all volunteer work! I only do acting and singing for a living now."

"Really? You sing?"

"Well…yeah, not as much as before, but I can still do it for a little. I only go as a filler guest in concerts."

"We should take you to that one place. They'd probably pay a lot for a detective to sing for them…"

"Really? Where's this place?"

It was eleven thirty by the time Papillon had returned to her apartment. She smiled and thought of Heiji's coming, but knew that he was made for Kazuha. She'd long since forgotten any romantic feelings she'd felt for him. She'd never even told him, but seeing Ran so eagerly awaiting Kudo's return…it had caused some of them to resurface.

The detective shook the thoughts out of her mind. Heiji was for Kazuha. He might have denied any romantic involvement with the martial artist, but Papillon knew that everyone denied that love. It was natural.

Papillon felt her mind wander back to one of her gigs. They'd asked her to fill in a few songs for some American singer. She'd closed her eyes and danced and sang for the crowd of people. Not for the cheers, for the happiness it brought her to release her voice again. But her voice had digressed since then. Her ability to sing was fading away with every poison…

Chocolate eyes went blind as the girl's eyelids covered them and she began to dance with an invisible partner and sang softly to herself.

"_There's a song that's inside of my soul.  
It's the one that I've tried to write over and over again  
I'm awake in the infinite cold.  
But you sing to me over and over and over again…"_

She danced on her own, wishing there was someone there to be with her. Her voice grew more confident, spinning with an unseen partner. A fantasy that belonged only to her.

"_So I lay my head back down,_

_And I lift my hands and pray."_

Now the symphony was growing within her own mind, the moonlight filtering through her window, casting shimmering diamonds upon her floor. It was almost like she was dancing on the night sky.

"_To be only yours, I pray, to be only yours,_

_I know now…you're my only hope."_

Now she slipped away from her invisible dance partner, twirling on her own, a graceful dance for an audience of none. Papillon hadn't done this in a long time. Not since her first murder case. Her voice grew stronger with each line, growing more beautiful.

"_Sing to me the song of the stars.  
Of your galaxy dancing and laughing and laughing again.  
When it feels like my dreams are so far  
Sing to me of the plans that you have for me over again…_"

Her voice faded slightly now, but still she danced the dance of the stars. The words were just a part of the entire song. The sound of her voice was just an instrument. For a long time, she felt her heart calming itself. For the first time in too long.

"_So I lay my head back down,_

_And I lift my hands and pray_,"

Now her invisible partner returned. The dancer imagined that her partner was Heiji, his arms spinning her, letting her dance on the skies. His own arms keeping her up in the stars. Dancing with her.

"_To be only yours, I pray, to be only yours, _

_I know now you're my only hope_."

And now he was hugging her close. Her wishes, her desires formed the words she sang, her voice making the melody. More twirling madness as her imaginary Heiji looked into her eyes, his own matching the earrings that pierced her earlobes.

"_I give you my destiny_,

_I'm giving you all of me…"_

Her voice was softer now, gentler than she'd heard it in a long time. Her throat was beginning to burn, her fantasies fading away. She didn't want the darkness, the skies to vanish from around her. The girl didn't want to see the magnificent gown of moonlight floating around her vanish into her imagination again. She desperately wanted it to be real.

"_I want your symphony,_

_Singing in all that I am,_

_At the top of my lungs_!"

Papillon heard her voice then. It was like it had been many years ago. Before she'd ruined her voice. Long before she'd ever discovered what poisons could do to your dreams. Before she hated people who used them…

"_I'm giving it back!"_

It wasn't the same anymore. The music had ended too soon. Her voice was gone again. The voice that people once craved to hear. It was too long ago for her to remember fully what it sounded like.

"_So I lay my head back down…_"

And now the dream was fading back into reality. The music was over too fast, and Papillon didn't want to leave her world of happiness. She didn't want to leave yet. She didn't want her moonlight gown to disappear forever.

"_And I lift my hands and pray_,

_To be only yours, I pray to be only yours…_"

The skies were fading into her room again. The fake Heiji vanished into the moonlight filtered through her window blinds. The stars faded back into a crimson floor and now the beautiful dress was gone. Finally, the energy disappeared and the detective lay her head down onto the pillow. Even if it was for no one, if no one had heard it but her, she'd had her beautiful voice back, if only for one dance. One song. One instant. It didn't matter, because her voice had returned.

"_I know now you're my only hope…_"

* * *

A/N: Yep, chapter 4 is up. I'm still a little ahead of schedule in NaNo, so it's okay, right? Anyways, I drew a picture of the ending scene in this chapter and it's up on Deviantart under Nementa. Should be my most recent thing...yep, was my first time attempting to draw Heiji. Yep. 


	5. Aaah, the wonders of daylight savings

Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan/Case Closed in any way or manner

Disclaimer 2: I don't own Curater or Furaden either

* * *

When Papillon awoke the next day, she was already twenty minutes late. 

"WHOA CRAP!" she shouted at her alarm clock as though it could change time. Unluckily, it couldn't. "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO WAKE ME UP!"

Without another word, the girl changed out of the set of clothes she'd worn the day before and ran out the door. There was no way in hell she was going to miss a huge case because she overslept. Her alarm clock lay on the floor, blinking miserably for attention.

The girl leapt onto her motorcycle, stabbing her keys into the ignition and riding off without fully securing her helmet. For the duration of the ride, the protective gear constantly began to come loose, forcing the detective to release a handlebar to press it more tightly against her head.

"Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn," the girl muttered softly to herself, caramel hair whipping around her, blinding her occasionally and giving her a scare. There were things that she was brave enough to do. Driving blind on a motorcycle was normally not one of them.

She'd learned not to do stupid things, but what she was doing now was undoubtedly one of the dumbest things she'd done in life. Weaving in and out of traffic was dangerous as it was, doing go at approximately twenty miles over the speed limit with times of blindness was probably not making it safer.

"Damn, damn, damn, THERE!" the girl made a wide turn, barely dodging a stream of cars as she sped into the parking lot of the crime scene.

_I'm so late, they're gonna be so mad_…the thought pushed through to the surface of the girl's mind, but nevertheless, she carried herself with confidence. It was much to her surprise that nobody was there. There were only a few men on watch to make sure nothing happened to the crime scene, and even they seemed as though they'd fall asleep at any given moment.

"What's going on?"

"Uh? Whad'ya mean?" one of the two sleepy officers slurred.

"I thought there was s'possed to be an investigation unit here…" Papillon stated softly.

"Yeah, in like, another hour…" and here a yawn interrupted his speech. "You part of it?"

"Yeah, but…why'd they change the schedule without telling me?"

"They didn't change the schedule…"

"What?"

"Did you not set your clocks back?" the second officer spoke up. "Didn't you know? Yesterday was the day we change our clocks back."

"What?!" the detective had forgotten. Her clocks. Wonderful. "Oh my god, I broke like, eighty traffic laws to get here quickly! That was pointless!"

Here a red leather glove reached for her cellular phone. There on the screen were the numbers 8:35. She had twenty-five minutes to spare before anyone would show up. Heiji was usually questionable in his ability to come on time, and the Sleeping Kogoro…he was hardly enough to be considered a detective, much less one that would come on time.

"I'll do some investigation first I suppose," the detective bowed stiffly before rushing into the scene, immediately taking in the information she saw. The place where the dead man had been was outlined with chalk. Papillon knelt down to the small puddle of blood.

"Sick…" she whispered to herself. "That's nasty…"

Within the chalk outline, there was scarcely any blood, however, Papillon could see the discoloration of the body fluid.

"Poison…?" her voice was soft now. "Ahi…I can't be sure…"

For a long while the girl examined the room, occasionally placing her head extremely close to the ground and other times trying to look over on top of places far beyond her reach. Suddenly, a familiar voice floated into the room.

"Hey, what are _you_ doing here?"

"I'm working on the case too, Heiji," the girl was careful not to touch anything. "It smells fishy."

"Of course, it's a murder, right?" the Detective of the West glanced down at his documents.

"But why would the murderer go through the trouble of shooting the guy after he died?" Papillon pointed at the pool of crimson on the floor. "That's not the color blood's supposed to be, and if he was shot, there should be a lot more."

"Idiot, I know that!" Heiji fussed. "Tell that to the inspectors when they get here!"

Papillon ignored the boy and went on looking through the room.

"Ahi…there's a lot of dust," but she stifled a sneeze to save herself the embarrassment. "Ah…! I found it!"

"Found what?"

"A possible motive!" a stack of small papers lined almost perfectly in a stack. "Ahi, I've got it!"

Emerald eyes stared at the stared at the seemingly normal stack before getting closer.

"Isn't this…just paper?"

"And you're always calling me idiot! These papers are smaller than normal printing size," Papillon made a motion around the stack. "They're made for writing letters by hand, and they probably have a water seal on them, see?"

"Ah…"

"Earlier, when I opened one of the drawers, I saw that something was out of place," Papillon recounted. "There was a square of empty space, meaning that either the victim or the murderer took something out…so I assumed that there was paper, but that doesn't work. The paper's too small."

"Ah! That's right!" Heiji now took a closer look at the paper. "The edges aren't worn or stained a different color!"

"Which means they were in a box, right?" Papillon sifted through the papers. "None of these have been worn down whatsoever, meaning that they were most likely kept in a box designed specifically for this kind of paper."

"Ah! Heiji, Papillon! You're here already?" a girl with long dark hair walked into the crime scene with Conan in tow, her sleepy father following after.

"Well, I got here kinda early, so I took the liberty of looking over the crime scene," Papillon shrugged. "And Heiji's here too."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you didn't really do anything but stand there like an idiot so far…"

"Hey!" there was mock anger in the boy's expression.

"What?" Papillon placed her hands on her hips. "Anyways, let's get this investigation underway. I didn't get to read the newspaper yet, and you know, motorcycles don't exactly have a radio for me to listen to the newest breakthrough on anything."

"Liar, you have an MP4 player in your pocket right now," Heiji pointed at the bulge in the girl's jacket pocket. "And yours has a radio on it."

"Oh, yeah, I'm gonna stick headphones under my helmet," Papillon stated flatly. "Let's just hurry so I can go to the lab…and we don't have any suspects here, do we?"

"Um…" there was a long awkward silence. Heiji felt the sudden need to get away from his friend before she blew.

"Freaking police didn't even get the suspects. Who do they think we are? Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler?" the chocolate eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Stupid. Freaking. Police."

"Um…" Heiji whispered to the Tokyo natives now. "She tends to get this way during investigations with no suspects, so don't mind her."

"What was that, Heiji?"

"Nothing!" the boy ejaculated before his friend could round on him. There was a slight glare from the only female detective. "Let's just do this…"

"Who wants to call the police and tell them to bring the body?"

"I'll do it," Ran volunteered immediately. The martial artist got away from the snapping fury that was Papillon as quickly as possible to get to the pay phone.

"Anyways, continuing my explanation with the box theory," Papillon placed her finger at the edge of the table. "The letters were in the box, explaining the perfect edges…"

"Couldn't it be the same if they were just taking really good care of it?"

"No, no, no," Papillon waved the assumption off immediately. "See, they put it in a drawer, frequently opened and closed because of all the pens and stuff in it. But you see, the edges don't have any dust on them, and…the tooth of the paper is perfectly intact. This paper has never been outside of the box until now."

"Eh? The tooth?"

"Ah…it's an art term for the texture of the paper, you see," Papillon lifted a piece of the watermarked paper. "You see, this paper is thick, and there are a lot of places where it goes up and then down...but if you write on it or erase it, or even if you touch it too hard, it's easy for the trained eye to tell that the paper's been used."

"But you just said that the murderer took it out of the box!"

"Yeah, but if you look closely, the papers are all upside down…most likely dumped from the box to find something," now the red gloves turned the paper in her hand over and over again. "I noticed that there's embossment on this side of the paper, but it's hard to write on that. So this side is probably the back…"

"Ah, can I see the paper?" Conan questioned.

"I suppose since I've already touched it…" Papillon handed the sheet to the small boy. He immediately examined it with piercing blue eyes. "Ahi, without the body, I can't be too sure, but…the victim was most likely poisoned."

"Eh? You figured all this out already?!" Kogoro exclaimed.

"Ahi, I'm an expert on poison…"

"Papillon, you're using that made up word again…"

"Shut up!" Papillon snapped. "Anyways, my reasoning behind this is that what little blood there is that did pool is discolored, and there's not enough blood for a normal wound to kill him. Unless his blood circulation was being cut off, I'm almost certain that he was poisoned before he was shot."

"W-wow, you're incredible!" Conan marveled. "You really know a lot about poisons, right?"

"…yeah, I do," but the words were only half hearted. The small detective wondered why. "Let's get looking for clues to figure out who the murderer is…"

"Okay then…" Kogoro began to look around.

"Huh?" the Detective of the West bent over suddenly. "Hey, there's some sort of fluid in here…"

"Let me see," Papillon looked at the liquid on the ground. The girl removed an eye dropper and took a single drop from the small puddle. She then removed a small piece of cardboard from her pocket and placed the liquid onto it. "Oh!"

"What is it?"

"It's carbofuran," the girl gave a smirk. "It's from a pesticide company, fromo the one that manufactures the one with the orange spray thing."

"Um…Curater?" Heiji questioned. Papillon waved her hands.

"Sure, sure," the detective claimed. "I don't know my pesticides nearly so much as my poisons. Anyways, that stuff's got some carbofuran in it, and you know, a quarter of a teaspoon is enough to kill someone…! Oh!"

Once more, the girl was on a trail like a hound. Caramel hair fell on either side of the detective's face when she placed it close to the pool of blood.

"They tried to cover up where the major spill was with the victim's blood. That's why it's in the middle of the outline instead of at the edges," she muttered softly to herself. "And there's bound to be some traces of blood from where the murderer touched the body. That was the reason that the murderer shot the victim _after his death_."

"Oh!" Heiji leapt to work. "And because the victim has a gun, _and_ has to have worked with the people that manufacture Curater."

"Why's that?" Kogoro scratched the back of his head, lost in the investigation.

"You see, any poison expert knows that Curater has two can labels. One type has a white cap…" Papillon lifted her left hand out of habit. "And these are the ones that are okay to be used by the public."

"But the other cap is orange," the Detective of the West claimed. "These are the ones that aren't sold in public stores and are normally disposed of by the end of the day…"

"But how can you be sure that it had to be one of the workers?" Ran blinked.

"Well, you see, those orange capped ones aren't sorted by which ones have enough poison, and which ones have too much poison…"

"Meaning…?" the oldest detective questioned.

"Meaning that only a worker could have known for sure that the poison would have killed this guy," Heiji claimed with his eyes sparkling. "In fact, he could have been the one that put too much of the poison. Too make sure that it was orange capped."

"Where is the inspector?" Papillon growled.

"He's coming up right now," Ran called into the house. A familiar face came into the room.

"Inspector Megure," the answer was cold and sharp. Heiji froze in place, sensing the expression in his friend's voice. "Late again."

"You do realize that's it's illegal to come here without police consent," the inspector snapped back.

"Well, unfortunately for you Inspector," the girl tossed her curled hair behind her. "I have police consent, meaning that it is now entirely…"

There was a pause here, each person in the room waiting for the next word.

"Legal," Papillon mocked the inspector openly. There wasn't the slightest bit of regret in her voice either. "Too bad."

The inspector shot a withering look at the detective, but she seemed generally unaffected by it.

"Ah! You know each other?" Ran questioned.

"It's hard not to know her if you're on the police force," Megure huffed. There were three police officers hesitating at the door. "Oh for…look at this, they won't even get near the menace!"

"Menace? Hah!" there was a sharp and single laugh. "Just because I can't _stand_ how the police force hires idiots who don't know the last thing about investigation?"

Here the girl rolled her eyes and shook her head irritably. Conan stared at the girl, wondering why she even cared so much about who the police force hired. It was true, there were _some_ questionable employees, but…

"In any case, who called the police?"

"Um…a Mr. Takagaro Miamoto," one of the police officers replied as quickly as possible.

"Ah…call him in," Papillon closed her eyes. "I believe I will hear what he has to say…"

"I'm right here," a well groomed man with piercing eyes strode into the room.

"Alright, care to tell us everything you saw?"

"If it will keep you out of my hair," Takagaro sighed. "Mr. Smith was a foreigner if I remember correctly, came here about four years ago and started a little business."

"I don't need to know anything about Mr. Smith from you right now, I need to know about the murder," chocolate eyes flared once. "Get it?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself, brat," the man snarled.

"The murder, Miamoto," Papillon reassert herself, more firmly this time. Heiji decided to let the girl unravel the case on her own.

"Alright, fine. Smith was supposed to call me at three or four on the day of the murder, only he never did. At around five I started wondering if he's forgotten, so I decided to call him instead. He didn't pick up," the man claimed. "So I thought to call back after his business hours, in case his line was too busy to be bothered with. So at around seven thirty, I called him again."

"He didn't pick up, correct?"

"Yes. So I started to worry. What if something had happened to him and he needed assistance with something? So I decided to come over immediately," the man pointed at the pool of blood on the floor. "And I saw his body there, bleeding! So I called the police."

"…?" Papillon hesitated, knowing something was wrong. "Did you see anyone else?"

"Well…there was his maid, but that was about it."

"…Mr. Takagaro, where do you work?"

"Me? I work as a Public Relations officer."

"Not what, where?"

"At Furaden," the man replied. Papillon narrowed her eyes. The man was lying. It was in his voice, the little different trait that she herself had abandoned long ago. It had been quite a while since there was such an inexperienced criminal that came up with such a devious scheme.

"Heiji, can I talk to you outside for a second?" the female detective questioned. Heiji paused for a moment. "Now?"

"Um…okay…I guess…" the boy went out the door. Caramel hair and red leather followed soon after.

"Something is very, very wrong about this entire situation…" the girl claimed. "That guy's lying. There are too many things wrong with the situation he just made up right now. It's all too weird."

"Well, say something then," the boy shrugged. "I dunno…"

"That's the thing, I can't unless I have proof, and…" there was a pause. "I don't have any against him. I can't let him get away though, because in just two days he could be out of the country, or maybe he'll kill someone else too…"

"You don't have a lot of faith in people, do you?"

"I don't think it's possible for someone to stop at just one murder where nothing happens to him," Papillon grumbled under her breath. "But it says in the report that the man died at about what? Six? Seven? According to the guy's testimony…"

"He came after the time of death, right?"

"Right, but he also said that he was laying there, _bleeding. _That's one of the things I found weird," Papillon claimed. "We've already established that the victim was killed before he was shot, and it was too late for him to be bleeding severely at that. Takagaro said that he was _still_ bleeding when he got here, at least half an hour after his death. That's not right…"

"Because the body would probably have stopped bleeding, right?"

"And the other thing I find funny is…"

"What?"

"How come the only person that was seen here by Takagaro was the maid? There should have been a lot of people, considering the landlady and other maids, butlers, and so on…" a single red digit pressed against the owner of said finger in confusion. "But he only mentions the one that would have no definite alibi…"

"In order to make her the primary suspect!" Heiji put two and two together. "He's got to have a hand in this somehow!"

"But the thing is, I haven't got enough proof to turn the case around…" there was a sigh. "And I've already established that it had to be a manufacturer of Curater…"

"Isn't Furaden a pesticide too?"

"Yeah," Papillon waved her hands. "They use red caps…Oh!"

"What?"

"I think I've got it!" just when she got back into the room, something pricked her neck and the girl felt herself slumping to the ground.

* * *

A/N: I actually don't know anything about pesticides, but I do know about carbofuran! Well, I'm new to this entire create the mystery then solve the mystery thing, so, good luck understanding whatever I put down as an explanation...On the other hand, y'all can review and tell me what you _think_ happened! Luve y'all 


	6. Strong as she looks?

Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan/Case Closed in any way or manner

"The murderer was you, Mr. Takagaro!" the girl heard her own voice speaking. Funny, she must have been really high, because she could have sworn she'd just finished thinking the process out. Well, whoever was talking, they were screwing up the Kansai dialect.

"Wh-what? Don't be ridiculous!" the man snarled in return. Whatever was going on, it seemed a little strange.

"It's not ridiculous, if you look at everything," the voice snapped back. It was funny how her mouth wasn't moving and yet the people still believed that she was the one talking. "You were the one who poisoned the victim!"

"The wound is clearly a gunshot wound! There was no poison!"

"That's what you'd have liked for us to think," the mysterious voice stealer continued. "You forgot something important though. After a certain amount of time, dead bodies don't bleed as much!"

A look of shock crossed the businessman's face. He began to break out in a cold sweat, just as Papillon thought he would. His lie had been fairly transparent after all.

"That's ridiculous! Ridiculous and untrue!" the man snarled with a smirk on his face. "Where's the proof that the man was poisoned?"

"It's right there, in the blood," her hand moved on its own accord. That was strange…or at least, more so than usual. "That puddle of blood is made mostly of the pesticide that your company manufactures!"

"H-how can you be so sure about that without testing it first?"

"It's simple, the blood was too thin, and it was discolored."

"L-liar! Prove it!"

"Inspector, if you'll take a sample of it, you'll see that it is almost completely made up of pesticides…"

"I thought that it was from Curater though, Takagaro has already said that he's from Furaden," Kogoro grumbled.

"I thought that at first, but if you look closely at the puddle on the floor, there are traces of orange paint, which was what led me to believe that is was Curater pesticides."

"Is…was…?" a thought crossed Ran's mind, thinking back to the Holmes Freak Murder. Hadn't Heiji also done the same thing…?

"Yes, but when I looked closer, the orange was slightly washed out, like it was made up of too much yellow paint mixed with red paint!" the female detective admired the reasoning the voice was using. She had barely noticed the difference in the cap color. "My deduction on the poison was right though. Both Curater and Furaden pesticides are known to contain the toxin, carbofuran."

"Wh-what?! But he's a PR!"

"That doesn't mean he couldn't have made sure that he got at least one of the cans," the disembodied voice continued. "He most likely, went down during break, and added more poison himself to one of the batches in order to make sure that any one he took later would be strong enough to kill a person…"

"Wh-what is this you're talking about? You're lying!" Takagaro yowled. "Lying! There's no proof that I did it!"

"Your testimony is all the proof we need," ah so the disembodied voice knew about her thought process too.

"Wh-what?"

"You came here at seven thirty and saw the man bleeding, correct?"

"Y-yes of course…"

"This couldn't have been. We know that the man was poisoned before he was shot, and half an hour later, he couldn'a been bleeding," Papillon made sure that she was very still. No need to ruin the voice's moment, right? Besides, she could hear a familiar little voice buried deep within her own. "You also said he was laying there, when in reality, he had not been placed on his back until after the police came."

"H-how can you say that?"

"As you can see, the blood is relatively unharmed, there's no sign that the victim was ever laying in the pool of blood," a familiar voice came into play here. Heiji shrugged while walking into the room.

"Right, and there's one more thing that I thought was funny…"

"What about it?"

"The window over there is broken, and there are glass shards on the ground nearby it," the voice claimed. _I didn't see the window…_ "But you never mentioned anything about it. The window was obviously newly broken, so why not say anything?"

"W-well, I was in shock!" the cover was terrible.

"Not enough to keep you from calling the police. You're familiar with this office, so you should have seen that the hidden window was broken to bits," the explanation went on. "But you didn't say anything about it."

"So what? It's obvious that the murderer used it to get into the building!"

"Then why are most of the glass shards on the wrong side of the window?" the voice had darkened considerably. Heiji leaned against the frame of the door.

"Ah, I see what you're getting at Papillon…" the detective claimed. Papillon on the other hand was vaguely insulted. Her best friend believed that she would suddenly sit down and start explaining…or perhaps he was in on the plan as well…

"What are you talking about?" Kogoro inquired gruffly.

"You see…" the girl's voice began to talk again, saying things she had not noticed in reality. "The window was broken fro the inside, not the outside, meaning that the murderer couldn't have broken it to get in."

"W-well, it's understandable if th-the murderer needed to get away!" Takagaro exclaimed. Heiji sighed and shook his head.

"Give up already, idiot. We can see right through you," the boy stated.

"Exactly…"

"How do you know it wasn't the maid?!"

"The maid has full access to the room, to get in and to get out," the female detective's voice filled the air again. "She could have just walked in, murdered the man, and more sensibly, walked out of the room, pretending that nothing happened…"

"Maybe she was trying to frame me!"

"Who would have more reliability? The businessman or the maid?" Heiji cocked his head to the side. "Obviously, if she wanted to frame you, she would have done something a little less dramatic…"

"What happened was this…" the voice stealer started up again. "Mr. Takagaro, you came into the room and poisoned the victim, killing him almost instantly, but then you began to worry that you'd become a suspect. After all, the maid had seen you walk in…so you created an alibi knowing that the victim wouldn't be able to answer his phone.

"By calling on your cellphone while you were still inside the room with the victim, you forged an alibi, making it seem as though you were still in the office at the time of the murder. You then proceeded to shoot the victim and dragged him over to where that body outline is…

"After this you went on to break the window to make it seem as though a murder had taken place and that the window was the method of entry, and afterwards, you walked out the door, pretending nothing happened. Half an hour later, you came back and then called the police, making you even less of a suspect in the murder…"

"N-no! You can't prove that I did anything!"

"Mr. Takagoro, do you know the function of star sixty-nine?"

"What?"

"The last call this phone received was the one you made with your cellphone," Papillon heard the voice continue. Whoever it was behind the reasoning knew about the return call. Personally, the girl had no idea herself how to work the return call, but star sixty-nine was a tricky thing to work. "Heiji, will you dial star sixty-nine for me?"

"Alright," Heiji replied while going to the phone. He dialed in the numbers while everyone watched in a stunned silence. There was silence for a few moments, and then Heiji, who was obviously vaguely confused hung the phone up. Takagoro opened his mouth after a few moments of awkward silence, prepared to give a triumphant remark. Then two phones began to ring, the office phone…and the cellular phone in Takagoro's pocket. All eyes turned to the man, and Papillon even gave herself the satisfaction of a smirk.

"Damn you…DAMN YOU!" the man shouted while rushing at the girl. Conan felt his eyes widen, if the girl was really asleep, then she might have trouble defending against the madman's attack. Heiji intervened, grabbing the man from behind, slowing his progress down. Papillon yawned and got up, still woozy from the tranquilizers. "YOU DAMN DETECTIVE! DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU!"

Here the man broke loose from the grip and removed a pistol from his breast pocket. He brandished the firearm and made as though to fire. Adrenaline flooded through Papillon's veins and she was immediately awake upon seeing the black metal in full, a hundred thoughts running through her head at once before her mind clogged up at one. _DISARM HIM!_

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

"EVERYBODY GET DOWN!" the girl shouted. The man got too close and suddenly, Papillon was on him like a hound. First, she grabbed at his arm and applied pressure to a certain point on the wrist, forcing the man to drop the gun. The girl kicked the firearm away, making it skid to a corner before the business man went wild and attempted to attack her with his fists.

"We've gotta help her!"

"Wait," Heiji stopped the police officer from interfering. "She knows what she's doing, and she's not good at fighting with other people in the way."

"But…"

"Just let her fight!"

Papillon avoided one blow after another, looking for an attack she'd be able to block for sure. Finally, she found one, a brutal swing of the fist, throwing the arm out after it. It was a wide, slow attack, a perfect chance to counter.

"Gotcha!" and she sidestepped the attack, using both her hands to latch onto the lower section arm, then releasing one to hold the upper arm, she forced the arm downwards before twisting it at an angle where the joints were at their limit. Then the girl released the recovering arm and grabbed at the man's vulnerable throat, applying only a few seconds of strangulation, thoroughly knocking the man unconscious.

After the small fight, the spectators simply stared in awe. Shocked expressions were worn by everyone but the girl's friend. Heiji only looked at her quizzically.

"You knocked him out?"

"Um, hello? There's still a gun on the floor," the girl pointed out the obvious danger with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "Would you rather him reach the gun and shoot me?"

"You know martial arts?" Ran questioned. Papillon nodded.

"Yeah," the girl counted on her fingers the styles she practiced. "Judo, jujutsu, aikido, you know, those styles that don't require a whole lot of strength…"

"Really?"

"Yeah, but I'm only good at judo, really…" the caramel hair girl shrugged. "Guess I'm just not very good at fighting."

"You disarmed him really well," Ran's father stooped over the firearm in the corner. "And you performed the strangulation very well, stopping before you caused any real damage."

"I tend to know pressure points…" the girl laughed nervously. "I'm kinda paranoid about you know, getting murdered. That'd be like, really ironic…"

The awkward silence settled over the group. Papillon was the first to break it.

"Ahi, ahi, that doesn't matter though!" she ejaculated. "What does matter is that we get this guy in cuffs before he wakes up!"

"Eh? Why?"

"Ahi…" Papillon shook her head. "I didn't want to kill him or really hurt him, so he'll wake up pretty soon…"

"A-ah!" one of the police officers quickly placed the restraints on the unconscious man. "Will you be…?"

"No, I have plans today," Papillon tossed her head. "He'll answer the questions if you press him hard enough."

"Yeah…probably…"

"By the way, where's the kid?" the girl questioned. Conan felt his heart skip a beat.

"Huh? Oh! Conan!" Ran gasped while searching.

"I-I'm right here!" the boy called while running towards the older girl. He only stopped when Papillon held him by the collar.

"Ahi…Kudo?" she questioned. Again the young detective's heart skipped a beat. "You're Kudo, right?"

"N-No! I'm j-just a kid, just a kid!" he exclaimed softly. "R-really…"

"You suck at lying," the girl stated flatly. "Your voice gives away that you're really nervous."

"A-ah…" the boy muttered softly. "Wh-when did you wake up?"

"Wake up? I never even fell asleep!" Papillon whispered in return. The boy felt his eyes widen at the statement. "Ahi, why'd you even try to knock me out in the first place? I just solved the mystery when you did…but I didn't notice that there was a window there."

There was another awkward silence. Papillon read the amazed expression on the boy's face and finally understood why he was so amazed. She wasn't supposed to be awake…what with the tranquilizer being shot in her neck

"Ahi…I have a tolerance to tranquilizers from all the times I got sick when I was little, you know?" chocolate eyes shimmered in delight. "But why are you a kid?"

"Um…I'll tell you later…" there was a slight pause. "How did you find out?"

"Find out? Well, for one thing your Kansai dialect sucks like frig, and the reasoning behind it is definitely that of…well, you…" there was a roll of the girl's shoulders here. "Oh, and I could hear your voice behind mine…"

"Are you serious…?" the boy questioned. "That was it? How ridiculous!"

"Whatever you say," and the boy was released. "Lemme guess, don't tell your girlfriend?"

"Sh-she's not my…" but the boy began to blush furiously. Papillon gave a small triumphant smile. There was little to no doubt that the young detective had some feelings for Ran, and really, she wished it could easily be the same for her and Heiji…unfortunately, the teen already knew who her friend loved…

"Cute," the teenaged girl giggled and pushed the small child away. "Well, that's one mystery solved I suppose…"

"You're incredible! How did you manage to figure all that out in a few hours?" Ran exclaimed. Papillon shrugged.

"It's pretty simple if you really think about it…anyways, wanna go get some lunch? I'm hungry," the girl claimed, trying her best to imitate the badly mimicked Kansai dialect used by Kudo. "I didn't even get to drink a soda or anything on my way out today…"

* * *

A/N: I haven't been updating too well. Whoops. Anyways, this should be one of the lst REALLY craptastic chapters I have written. Um...let's see...right! A small preview of the next chapter? Yes, no?

A friendly face returns from Papillon's past during a trip to a ski resort, but a storm interferes on the fun and festivities. A blood-chilling scream and a brutal attack can only serve to make things worse! What will Conan do when every piece of evidence points to a friend?


	7. Impossible pt I

Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan/Case Closed in any way or manner

As a side note, though I'm pretty sure nobody cares, Papillon's "Ahi" is pronounce as "Ah-hee" not some funky pronounciation.

* * *

"Aah-chu!"

"You feeling any better?"

"No…I'm still cold."

"Here, I'll get you some soup."

"Ah! No, don't stop just cause of me! I can get it myself!" a brown-haired girl with chocolate eyes got up from her spot. She gave a small sniffle as she started the trek to the nearest store. God, what she'd been looking forward to for the past _three_ months, and what happened? A stupid cold came to wreak havoc on her! Ah…well, it wasn't like they were ice skating anyways. The girl suddenly stopped and turned back towards the first person to have spoken to her. "Hey, Kazuha, you want me to get something for you too?"

"It's fine! Just go and get better!" the other girl said. "How unlucky though…I hope you get better tomorrow…"

"I wish I didn't get this ridiculous cold! I wanted to go skating later today too!" Papillon sighed and gave yet another sniff, holding back a sneeze. "Well, if the others ask, tell them that I went to the s-staaa-choo!"

"Haha…I'll tell them, you just hurry up and get out of this cold!" Kazuha waved goodbye to Papillon as she watched the girl in her borrowed jacket get further and further away. "Poor Pap, she was the one looking forward to this the most."

"Watch out!" the cry came. Kazuha barely turned in time to see a certain someone crashing into a tree. No need to guess who _that_ was…

"Dad, are you alright?!" Ran came down after the one in the accident. She came to a stop close to the tree with Conan close behind. The girl helped Kogoro up from his spot on the floor while Conan gave a slight laugh. The famous detective wasn't going to get better at skiing, though that might not have been such a bad thing.

"Wow Uncle! You did it like in the cartoons!" the small boy laughed. Moments later he was wincing in pain as a fist came crashing down onto his head.

"Quiet, you!"

"Dad!"

"Hey, Kazuha!" and at last Heiji came from the top of the mountain. He skid to a stop before the girl and gave a cheesy grin. "Snowboarding's not as hard as everyone says it is."

"You just wanna show off, don't you?" Kazuha shot back. Heiji looked a little put out at those words. The detective of the west instead changed the topic, looking left and right he blinked once or twice and then looked back at Kazuha.

"Where's Pap?" he questioned. The dark haired girl gave a slight huff at those words.

"She went to warm up at the store seeing as _someone_ dragged her around until she got sick two days ago…"

"I'm tellin' you it wasn't me!" Heiji exclaimed. The tanned boy then pointed at Conan, who was now a fair bit closer than before. "It was that Ku—I mean kid! He took her this way and that asking her questions!"

"Hey…I can hear you…" Conan mumbled softly, not that he wanted to get involved in the little argument that Heiji and Kazuha were in anyways. A thought crossed his mind while he said this. _'Wasn't it you that suggested that we get her to invite us…?'_

"Don't blame it on him! You're the one that got Papillon sick!" Kazuha snapped back at Heiji. It was then that someone unfamiliar broke in on the conversation.

"Huh? Papillon? You mean Pappy?" a female voice came in on the conversation. Heads turned to the one speaking, a woman with strangely enough, silver hair. She was tall, at least five-feet and eight inches, and her hair was almost long enough to reach her waist, almost meticulously well kept as well. "Is she here already? I told her to call me…"

"Um…who are you…?" Heiji questioned. The woman looked at him and her eyes flashed an instant of confusion then lit up. She looked him up and down once and walked around him once, then gave a laugh.

"Man! You've grown!" the woman grinned while patting the boy on the back. Heiji blinked in surprise at the action. "I couldn't recognize you after six years, Heiji!"

"Huh?!" Heiji blinked in confusion. "But I've never seen you…"

"You have, but you probably don't remember. I haven't seen you or Kazuha for what? Six years?" the woman with silver hair smiled. She didn't seem offended at all at the fact that Heiji didn't seem to remember her. "I'm really not surprised."

"Ah! Aren't you that famous kendoka?" Conan questioned. The woman blinked and looked down at the boy. "Ishiko Shibata, you're the one that always goes to the testing on your birthday. I saw you on the newspaper back at the store!"

"Hah? Yeah, that's me. They did an interview on me the other day, but they didn't tell me they were putting it on the newspaper…" Ishiko paused and gave a smile at the boy. "I didn't think someone as young as you would be reading the newspaper."

"Oh! Conan's always reading the newspaper!" Ran said while moving closer to the small group that was forming. "Isn't that right?"

"Uh…yeah!" the boy chirped in response. Ishiko looked from the small boy to the girl then put two and two together and looked around. "If I hear right he should be somewhere around here…"

"Oh my! Shouldn't you be wearing more in this weather?" Kogoro exclaimed while running towards the woman. Ishiko looked at Kogoro and gave a smile a smile at the man. She recognized him rather easily.

"And here's the ever-famous 'Sleeping Kogoro' right…?"

"Ah…how did you know?"

"I'm a fan of his cases. Well…his and Shinichi Kudo's," Ishiko explained. "But Kudo suddenly vanished and now all I'm left with are old newspaper clippings…"

"Huh?" Ran stared at the woman for a bit. She seemed suddenly very…sad. The demeanor vanished and Ishiko went back to the cheerful disposition she originally had.

"But anyways, where's Pappy?" Ishiko looked about.

"She's up over there warming up." Kazuha said while trying to put her finger on the memory of who Ishiko was. "Papillon got sick…"

"Oh…that's a shame. Mamosuke was so intent on showing her the rink…" Ishiko said with a tint of sadness in her voice. "But I'm pretty sure we won't get very much chance to do anything…"

"Huh? Why not?" Kogoro questioned. Ishiko pointed at the sky a small distance away, to some harmless looking clouds. "Hmm?"

"The wind speeds have picked up a bit, and the weather forecast said something about a storm" the woman said. "It'll probably reach this area by tomorrow morning if not sooner."

"What? Really?" Heiji questioned. "Aw man, what bad timing…"

"We should have checked the forecast," Kazuha sighed. Ishiko on the other hand shook her head.

"Well…it was really sudden. It's getting pretty late anyways, I'll go pick up Pappy!" Ishiko grinned while making her way towards the store as well. Heiji and Kazuha stared after the silver-haired woman.

"Isn't silver a _little_ over the top?" Kazuha huffed, her breath coming out in a visible puff. "I'd never dye my whole head silver like that…"

"It's unusual, true…" Kogoro agreed, staring after the woman with long, silver hair. "But either way she's stunning!"

* * *

"Wow! This place is huge!" Heiji gasped while walking in the door. Kazuha seemed equally impressed at the size of the place they were staying. "Is it really okay for us to stay here?"

"The resort lost your reservations, didn't they? Besides, I haven't seen Pappy in so long, it'll be nice to catch up with her!" Ishiko grinned while helping Papillon into the house. The caramel-haired girl looked around and gave a fairly content sigh.

"You and Mamosuke haven't changed this place at all…" the girl said while giving a sniffle. "I'm sorry to trouble you like this though."

"Mamosuke wanted to see you anyways, I'm sure he won't mind," Ishiko said. "You guys should wait here, I'll go get him, make yourselves at home!"

"No need, I got your message earlier!" and suddenly a man came into view with a tray of tea and cocoa. "I just finished making the tea and the cocoa."

Papillon looked at the cups on the tray. She gave a look to Ishiko and then gave a smile to Mamosuke. "It's good to see you again! It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

"Ah…it does this old man good to see how much you've grown," the man said while setting down the tray. "We have another visitor, so please excuse me if I can't do much to catch up with you."

"Ahi…it's fine! Who's the visitor anyways?" Papillon questioned. "Or is it someone I don't know?"

"It's Torao…"

"A-ah…! Are you going to be okay Pappy?" Ishiko questioned. Papillon gave a soft smile and covered up anything she might have been feeling with a grin.

"It's fine. That was a long time ago, I don't care anymore," the girl said. "I'll show the others around later so don't worry about them getting lost."

"Alright then. Maybe later we can go down to the pond," Mamosuke said, his eyes closing as he gave a smile. "You still like ice skating, don't you?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" Papillon said while taking a seat. "Though between work and other things…"

"You haven't been practicing, have you?" Mamosuke grinned. "Well…"

As the conversation continued between Papillon and Mamosuke, Conan and Heiji were having their own conversation. Heiji seemed a bit confused, while Conan looked to be in annoyance.

"Torao, that name's familiar…" Heiji mumbled to himself. Conan pressed his memory, trying to remember the significance of the name. He could remember seeing the name before, but where?

"Well there's Torao Tanaka, but I don't think they'd have him as a visitor…" Conan muttered softly to himself. "After all, he was accused of attempted murder…"

* * *

"We won't be able to have individual rooms, but we won't have to cram into just one room," Papillon explained while leading her friends around the large house. "There should be three guest rooms, but Torao is taking one of them…so there are two. We can have the girls in one room and the boys in another, if that works…"

"Hmm…but I don't wanna leave Conan…" Ran started.

"Hmm? Well…we could always split the groups like this…" Papillon started while separating them into clear groups, one to the left and the other to the right. "Conaa-chu! Conan, Ran, and Kazuha, and Heiji and Mr. Mori…"

"What about you?" Kazuha questioned. Papillon gave a sniffle and grinned at the other girl.

"Ahi, I'm sick anyways, I'm gonna sleep in the sick room," Papillon said with a small smile. A familiar voice broke the air, causing Papillon to turn her head towards the owner of said voice.

"Why don't you just sleep in your old room?" Ishiko questioned, her silver hair shining in the light. "It'll be just like the old days!"

"But that room…" the young detective began. Ishiko grinned and put her arm around Papillon's shoulder. "Ishiko!"

"You're not scared of that room still are you? I'm telling you…it wasn't a phantom! You were just--!"

"Easy for you to say. I was the one that got hurt in the end…!" Papillon snapped. "It was cause of that that I…"

"You should face up to your fears. Otherwise you'll never get over it, and you'll always be afraid of a silly little room. I heard you even moved out because of it," Ishiko replied with a huff. "Mamosuke was so hurt that you didn't tell him anything."

"Th-that's not the reason I left!" Papillon stammered in response. "It was because I was given somewhere else and I didn't wanna burden anyone…"

"Yeah right, you were probably freaked out that Torao would come after you again."

"Ishiko! Torao just made an honest mistake…"

"Um…what do you mean go after you again?" Heiji questioned. "Did this Torao guy go after you before?"

"Now look what you've done Ishiko…" Papillon muttered. "It was a long time ago. Torao gave me the wrong medicine when I went to the hospital, that's all!"

"Pap, wait!" Heiji called as the caramel haired girl stormed off, her anger souring the mood in an instant. His eyes went to Ishiko, who looked half confused, half regretful. "Could it be that the patient treated by Torao Tanaka was…?"

"Yeah, but there was nothing to ever prove it was really…" Ishiko started, before bringing her fingers to her mouth and chewing on them. "They said it was…"

Conan dared a glance at Heiji, finding an expression of fear, anger, and confusion. The boy decided that it would be best to snap the boy out of it.

"Heiji, let's go explore a little!" the sapphire-eyed boy exclaimed while running off. Heiji blinked away his current mix of emotions and went after the boy.

"Hey, don't just run off like that!" Heiji called while chasing after Conan. "Everyone'll kill me if you slip and fall!"

Ishiko checked the time on her watch and gasped. "It's so late! I'll show you where you'll be sleeping."

* * *

About half an hour later, the anger that Papillon had been emanating seemed to have vanished, a smile covering what she might have been feeling before. Though still sick, she managed to make the atmosphere much lighter, producing a deck of cards and a lot of light-hearted jokes and stories.

"Heiji…don't you think it's weird?" Kazuha whispered to the boy. The detective of the west glanced at his friend. "Papillon's acting funny…"

"You noticed too? It's like she's trying to be happy," the boy replied. And it was true, for all the years he'd known the caramel haired girl with a knack for poison and detective work, he'd never be able to tell her acting and her true emotions apart, but… "She's pushing it…huh?"

"Ah well, if she doesn't wanna tell us anything she doesn't have to," Kazuha replied while frowning a bit. "It just bothers me a little that she hasn't told us anything."

"And what are the two love-birds talking about now?"

"Ack!"

"Gah!" Heiji almost jumped from his seat at the voice above his shoulders. The silver haired woman with dark-jewel eyes peered down at them and gave a little smile at the two. "You're kidding, right?"

"I don't know, am I?" Ishiko replied while giving a cheery laugh. Mamosuke's voice was the one that responded to the silver-haired woman's question, though he seemed none too pleased with her actions.

"Ishiko, leave our guests alone," he demanded. "Can't you act your age outside of a crime scene or a dojo?"

"Maaah, I hate acting my age. Guys never wanna date someone so close to their expiration date…"

"For the last time, stop calling it an expiration date!" Mamosuke snapped. "Besides, how old am I?"

"But you already have a loving wife, and you met her when you were twenty-six…" the woman replied. She groaned and settled heavily into a chair, frowning to herself. "I'm almost thirty and I _still_ can't find myself boyfriend…it makes me feel pathetic seeing cute couples like them."

"B-but we're not a couple…" Kazuha stammered. Ishiko gave a laugh and placed her hands behind her head. "Wh-what?"

"You and him have been friends since childhood, of course you'd say something like that…" Ishiko claimed. "I think I'll help myself to some of that dessert."

"Sweet tooth witch," yet another voice, this time flat in tone, but still friendly. "You and your sweets."

"Quiet you…" Ishiko replied while pulling Papillon into a headlock. The younger flailed a bit and gave her objections, but didn't make a real effort to throw her friend off her. "How d'ya like that?"

"Ishieeee…" the girl whined. It was then that the sound of a slamming door reached the ears of those enjoying the show put on by Ishiko and the girl of caramel and chocolate. Papillon sent her gaze over to the source of the noise, greeted by the sight of a tall, well-built man of brown hair and green eyes. She smiled and called out to the man. "Torao! Come on! Join in with us!"

"Um…it's okay…" he said while bowing and hastily returning to his room. Papillon stopped and stared for a bit sighed her spirits hampered in an instant.

"It wasn't…" she mumbled softly. Heiji got up with a yawn and rubbed his eyes, tears of sleepiness forming in the corners of his eyes. "You're tired already…?"

"Yeah…dunno why…" Heiji yawned again while scratching the back of his head. "I think I'm gonna head off to bed first then."

"I'll bet you're exhausted from snowboarding…"

'_How…?'_

Heiji had barely gotten out of sight when the lights suddenly went out along with all he other electrical appliances. There were gasps of surprise and swears, and of course, several running footsteps.

"What happened to the lights?"

"The storm must have set in and killed the lights or something!"

"Ishie I'm scared…"

"Don't worry Pappy, I've got you…" In the darkness Ishiko could feel something grabbing onto her arm. "Or you've got me…in any case, everyone should hold onto someone, Papillon and I will go figure out what's wrong."

"Ran and I will go to make sure Heiji's okay…" Kazuha's voice called out from the darkness. There were sounds of footsteps, slow and cautious, leaving the room. "Ouch!"

"It's too dark to see anything…" Papillon muttered while taking out her cellphone. Ishiko stared for a moment before understanding the idea. She took hers out as well and flipped it open, using it as a flashlight. "Heh, you still haven't lost your touch…"

"I could say the same for you," Ishiko replied while grabbing Papillon's arm and moving forward. Suddenly everything went bright and Papillon winced, the sudden light giving her a slight headache. "Whoa…what was that?"

"Someone got to the circuit breaker before we did," Papillon replied. She shook the headache away from her head while holding back a sneeze. "That's the only thing that I can think of."

"Maybe…" Ishiko replied softly. It was then that an all too familiar scream reached her ears. Both Papillon and her silver-haired friend tensed up at the sound. "Mamosuke!"

"Oh no…" Papillon muttered under her breath. She grabbed the arm of her friend and began to dash away towards the source of the sound. "Please don't be hurt, please…"

'…_why is she…?'_ Ishiko thought then stopped her thoughts. It was too much to ask, especially at that moment. Instead, the silver-haired woman separated and ran alongside with Papillon. They found who they were looking for backed up against a wall with a terrified Kogoro looking into a room. A flash of caramel and silver and suddenly Ishiko was beside Papillon staring at whatever made Mamosuke scream and Kogoro pale.

"I-it couldn't be…" Papillon gasped. "Torao…Torao!"

Conan, who stood beside the caramel haired detective looked to be in shock. It couldn't be…could it? Torao Tanaka, dead in his own room…the boy bit his lip and looked back towards where Ran and Kazuha had gone. _'C'mon…what's keeping him…?'_

Kazuha and Ran appeared moments later, both of them sharing the same expression. Neither of them needed to speak for Conan to get the idea, but Kazuha was the one who explained the situation. "H-Heiji isn't in the room!"

"Where is he?!"

"The situation looks grim…" Kogoro started darkly. Conan could easily follow his train of thought, his heart pounding heavily against his chest. He couldn't believe it…no, he refused to do it! It wasn't possible…was it? "A murder…and the only one that could have done it has to be…"

"I won't believe it!" a familiar voice shouted. Heads turned to the girl who spoke with the Kansai dialect. Her eyes were filled with tears as Kazuha shouted the second part of her statement. "Heiji would never murder someone!"

* * *

A/N: Gah…This mystery is a lot longer than I thought it'd be. I'll just break it down into a few chapters then and hope it works out for the best. I have the feeling people are going to hate me until this mystery's solved. Ah well, FLAME AWAY!


	8. Knowledge pt II

Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan/Case Closed in any way or manner

* * *

The mood had dampened considerably, and searches for the tan green-eyed boy were unsuccessful. Only two people remained at the scene of the crime. Ishiko and Papillon. Both investigating and searching for suspicious facts.

"Poor Torao…it looks like he was put through a lot of abuse before or after his death…" Ishiko said while examining the corpse. "With what knowledge I have I can gather just a little…"

"I already looked at the body, but I can't be certain about the cause of death…" Papillon replied while searching the room, but not really putting any heart into it. There didn't seem to be much of a struggle despite the semi-ransacked room. Everything was just too…orderly for a struggle. "Ahi…there're a lot of possibilities. A strong blow to the gut might have done it, and there're signs of being beaten with some sort of weapon…"

"Probably that bokken over there."

"Isn't that yours?"

"Yeah. I brought it to practice katta since I was originally going to stay in this room," Ishiko replied. "But it seems that the culprit found a different use for it."

"There are signs that he was strangled, not by hand though are plenty of rope marks on his throat, but he didn't die from a lack of oxygen," Papillon continued. Her eyes focused on a singular point on the wall. "And it doesn't look like he struggled against it. See? No nail marks…"

"…do you think it's…?"

"That's all I'm going to say…" Papillon replied. "I don't want to investigate in this case any further."

"You know who it is," Ishiko accused softly. The younger girl stopped in her tracks as the words reached her ears. "You can't choose the cases you get pulled into, you just have to solve them with as little regret as possible…"

"Because taking a life away is wrong," Papillon finished without even bothering to look back at the silver-haired woman behind her. "You've told me this many times. That if I can't solve the mystery without guilt, I'm not cut out to be a detective."

"Taking a life away is wrong, but letting it be stolen in front of your eyes…isn't that just as bad?" Ishiko questioned. Chocolate eyes widened in surprise then fell into an unhappy expression. "You shouldn't run away from a case just because you don't like it."

"…I'm not going to have this conversation with you of all people."

"Papillon, wait…" but it was too late, the last of the girl's hair vanished in a wisp. "Mah…she has such a short temper…but back to the investigation…"

"Um…auntie, does anyone here practice kendo besides you and Heiji?" a childish voice made Ishiko's blood freeze.

"Aha…as far as I know only Heiji and I practice it…" Ishiko claimed. Conan was feeling the grip he had on the situation slipping between his fingers like fine sand. "But you're not suggesting that I would have--!"

"N-no! Of course not!" Conan stammered. "I-it doesn't make sense if someone like you could kill such a big man!"

"Hey now…what's that supposed to mean kid?" Ishiko questioned. The small sapphire-eyed boy gave a nervous laugh when his fingers brushed against something…sticky. He pulled his hand closer to his face to see what it was only to pale and jerk away from the source. "What's wrong with you?"

"B-blood! Ewww!" he exclaimed while waving his hand around. It was an act, but he did mentally swear in his mind. He'd just stuck his hand in what could have been crucial evidence. Ishiko gave a slight laugh and pulled Conan's hand closer for inspection.

"Huh?!" her eyes widened and she searched for the source. "It looks strange…? N-no…I must be out of it. It's not different from normal blood after it's…yeah…I'm just…out of it…"

Conan sent his gaze over the woman with silver hair. _'What's with her expression…?'_

"Mah…this just keeps looking worse for him…" the woman muttered under her breath while releasing Conan's wrist. Her eyes held a worried glint that Conan wasn't too familiar with, but hidden behind that look was one of hope. "I have faith in those two."

"Can't anyone find Heiji?!" Kazuha's voice suddenly rang out from the hallways outside. Footsteps ran about the house, thumping sounds chasing the careless searchers. "H-he could be in trouble!"

"…I don't understand…" Ishiko muttered softly to herself. Conan blinked and turned his attention towards the silver-haired woman. Her eyes were filled with something that the boy was used to seeing on people's faces. "How could she admire someone willing to steal something like this away…?"

"Did auntie know this uncle?" Conan questioned. Dark eyes blinked and turned to the child. She'd quite forgotten he was there as well. As best she could, the woman wiped her eyes and shook her head.

"Not really. I only met him once or twice," Ishiko replied without a hint of a lie in her voice. "Torao was Pappy's doctor once…and the only people with real motives to kill him would be close friends like me and Mamosuke…"

"Huh?"

"Torao Tanaka…I can't say I'm sorry he's dead…" someone said while standing at the entrance. Two heads turned to see Mamosuke with a slightly forlorn expression on his face and his hands in his pockets. The hazelnut pools that were once glimmering in hospitality and friendliness were suddenly lost in a mist of unpleasant memories. "It would hardly be the truth."

"How can you say something like that Mamosuke?!" Ishiko suddenly shouted while hitting Mamosuke hard with her left hand. Conan blinked as he felt something wet hit his cheek then slide down. "You shouldn't ever say such things! Life is precious! You can't give it back once it's been taken away!"

'_Why is she so angry…?'_ Conan questioned while wiping the wet spot on his cheek with his arm. Ishiko stormed off soon afterwards, leaving behind an incomplete investigation, a man with his head turned from the sting of a slap, and a confused boy.

"Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up…" the man sighed and shook his head. "I guess I deserved that. I'm too old to be guessing how emotions should be now…"

"Huh?"

* * *

"Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Papillon fumed while going insane in her room. Things were tossed left and right, chairs overturned and mattress long since thrown from the bed. She grabbed a pillow and covered her face with it, muffling an aggravated scream before throwing it too against a wall. "Where could I have left the damn thing?!"

She was frustrated beyond belief. Irritation peaked in her body, and she had yet to rest. Papillon was too busy searching for some unknown item. Something crucial to the case. She'd forgotten about it a long time ago, but now that she needed it, the damn thing had gone missing. Angry and tired, Papillon leaned against the wall and bowed her head down. She needed to figure something out. Anything. Her mind ran through every place it could be, but she remembered leaving it in her room.

"Ahi…this is annoying. Where the hell did I put it…?" muttering, the girl sighed and tried to concentrate on where her search might lead. There were sounds of people moving around left and right in the rooms below. They were still investigating or searching for Heiji. Her heart ached there. Heiji. She didn't know where he was, and without finding him, the crime was looking more and more…no. Papillon shook her head, the caramel curls moving with her head. Chocolate eyes opened and she stared at the floor, distracted. Where was Heiji? Why had he mysteriously gone missing? What had killed Torao? There were simply too many questions that had yet to be answered.

'_The evidence is all there…you're just refusing to look at it,'_ a voice in her mind claimed. Papillon shut her eyes and blocked it out. She didn't need her conscience weighing down her guilt. The girl opened her eyes and looked at the wrist that was hidden beneath a glove and a sleeve. Her eyes softened a bit. Memories. Torao would have been annoyed with her if he'd known what she was doing to herself now. Something in her stomach gurgled up and Papillon just barely managed to keep the vomit in her stomach. Exhaustion beat at her body, but Papillon opened her eyes and started to kick off the wall to renew her search.

That was when the sound of her door opening caught her attention. Glancing up, Papillon gasped as she took in the sight of who was at the door. That person again. Something like a nervous smile twitched onto the corners of her mouth and Papillon crossed her arms and put her hands onto her hips. "Why aren't you with everyone else?"

No answer. Papillon didn't expect one. Her smile died a little as her initial shock started to wear off. She knew it. She _knew_ it. The girl remained silent. That person knew too. Knew that Papillon had already suspected—no, already known about the crime…knew that Papillon would figure it out because she knew everyone there. The intruder took a step closer, still silent.

"Won't you say anything?" the detective questioned softly. There was no one around. Papillon wasn't sure that she was safe, even if it was that person approaching. No answer. Papillon's heart started to race. Her stomach hurt again. She wanted to throw up. That person took a step closer, now the two were almost in arm's reach of one another. The shorter one stood her ground, always confident, always unwilling to back down from a challenge. If she was attacked, then the grappling arts would always be able to work. But this person had been the one to teach her…no. It hadn't been that person…that person had been helping her, but not teaching her. Another step. Papillon spoke again. "Why did you do it…?"

Now the person was in front of her. Papillon didn't move, no. She _couldn't_ move. Her muscles seemed to have frozen. She couldn't bring herself to move in defense. She'd never _had_ to against this person before, and no attack was being made. The detective found that the person was too close. She couldn't look into the face of her once-was friend. A hand cradled Papillon's chin and lifted up. It was caught in between a cold feeling and a warm one. The voice whispered in her ear.

"I did it for you," the murderer's voice was soft and barely audible, but the words wracked onto Papillon like a million tons. "I'm sorry, by the way…" And then there was sudden pain in her stomach, then against her chest. Papillon was pushed back and her vision swam. A thousand things ran through her mind, none of them really registering. She was too much in shock to do much else. Covering the places where she had been impacted, Papillon looked back up at the face of her once-was friend. Everything hurt. Another attack that she couldn't block. The still hazy individual was thrown back into her dresser, the lamp and several of the smaller things on top clattering to the floor as the entire thing shook. Her head swam at the impact.

Stubborn, stubborn. She'd always been hard to knock down. Papillon continued to stand, barely able to keep her balance. The girl with caramel curls pressed her hand up against the dresser. Her head was swimming in a whirlpool of thoughts. Another hit. She staggered, but didn't fall. Something was wrong. Reality set in, and the combined impact of the physical and mental trials that the girl was going through finally set into her body. A cry of something between pain and terror resounded through her room, the voice cracking at its zenith. Her legs buckled, and the last thing she saw was the person's knees before her vision went black.

* * *

"Did you hear that?" Ran questioned her friend as they searched for the missing boy. There was little chance that he'd be outside considering the storm, but nobody seemed to be able to find him. If there had been any footprints in the snow outside, they were gone by then. Kazuha glanced back at Ran with a question on her face. "There was…a sound just now…"

"Sorry, I didn't hear it…" the other girl replied. Ran blinked and wondered exactly what had happened, but let it pass off as her imagination as she continued to search. Nobody was at the crime scene at that point. Kogoro was convinced that Heiji had done the scene, Conan was busy looking around the scene, and Ishiko and Papillon were both off elsewhere. Mamosuke had refused to go in, claiming that he didn't want to mess up any evidence that might have been left behind. That left one person unaccounted for. Heiji. "Geeze…where that blockhead go?!"

"We've checked everywhere now…right?" Ran questioned. Kazuha sighed and sank down in the hallway. Ran sat beside her friend and put her arm around the girl in a comforting manner. "It's okay…I'm sure he's okay."

"I hope so…"

The two remained there for a while longer and remained in silence for a moment, thoughts weighing heavily against their minds. He was innocent, they were sure. Hell, everyone but Mamosuke and Kogoro seemed sure of that, but without any proof or way of finding the boy himself. It was hard to prove that he hadn't done anything. After a short moment, a cry caught their attention. Both shot up to their feet and looked around. Kazuha was the first to speak.

"Wasn't that…Papillon's voice…?!"

"N-No way…?! Where did it come from?!" Ran exclaimed. The two didn't even have to think as they dashed off to the stairs that they had gone up and down a thousand times before in the past few hours. There was a throng of people rushing towards the top of the stairs and they were none-too-relaxed in the situation. Conan was dashing up as fast he could with a serious expression on his face and it seemed as though Mamozuke had been in a room already at the top of the stairs for he was running towards the source of the scream. No sooner had he thrown the door open did everyone's faces pale in horror.

The room was fairly ruined. It looked as though it had been ransacked, and there were things scattered left and right on the floor. But that wasn't what made Ran and Kazuha scream together at the same time. What they saw was a young girl with caramel curls. They didn't see the messiness, and they didn't see the shredded bed-sheets or anything of that sort.

There, dangling in the middle of the room by a loosely tied cloth around her neck was the barely breathing body of one Akai Papillon.

* * *

A/N: Hurrr…I like how long it takes me to get motivated to actually update this thing. The mystery's almost over I think. Not entirely sure anymore, really.


	9. Deductions pt III

Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan/Case Closed in any way or form.

Updated again after almost a year...yeah...I procrastinate a lot...in fact, I'm neglecting my summer homework as I do this...

* * *

"P-Pappy…!"

The sound of frantic running was what snapped everyone out of their senses. A flash of silver hair flickered before everyone's eyes as Ishiko grabbed the child from her spot and pulled her away from her noose. Her light-colored eyes were filled with a fiery anguish that looked all too familiar to a certain boy's eyes. Ishiko pulled the girl's wrist up, checked for the pulse. She sighed in relief, but that smoldering hatred was still floating off her. "She's alive…"

"Thank G—"

"But she won't be if she throws up with no one watching," Ishiko stated while checking over the smaller girl with a careful eye. Conan was tempted to scurry up beside her, but felt the immediate danger of an angry woman and resisted the urge. After a short moment, the kendoka sighed and then picked the smaller girl up, scooping her up from under her legs. "I'm taking her to the sick room, Mamosuke, help me get some blankets and water."

"But I should-"

"Now!" the command was like a tiger's maternal yowl, enough to make the owner of the house shut up and hurry after the silver-haired woman. Conan watched after her, and Ran made as though to follow, but Ishiko made a motion of "no" with her head towards the girl. "It's fine, Mamosuke's the only one I'll need for help," Ran hesitated, as if she didn't know what to do and then gave Conan a look, as if...for help. The sapphire eyed boy blinked and then glanced at Ishiko, who was making her way towards the door quite quickly in spite of the girl in her arms. Realizing the danger, he spoke up.

"Auntie, it's dangerous! The attacker is still out there!" Conan exclaimed with his best childish quality. Ishiko stopped for a moment, as if contemplating something, and then looked back at Conan with a strange expression that she didn't even seem to be aware that she was wearing. The boy hesitated, hoped that his words had worked, but the instant darkening and shake of the head had proven him wrong.

"If that attacker comes, I won't hesitate to strike back twice as hard," the woman said, but all the while, her expression said a different thing to the boy that had suggested the very idea of the attacker. Her gray-black eyes practically screamed "Don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong!" to the boy, but he said nothing about it. Suspicious, but a look wasn't exactly the best incriminating evidence there was to be had. His eyes went to Papillon's unconscious frame and then he ground his teeth together.

Apparently the culprit was playing the silencer as well.

* * *

"Ishiko, I have the blankets you asked for," Mamosuke said while walking through the door. The woman in question jerked and span on her heel to face the familiar intruder at the door with her muscles tense and at the ready, noticed who it was, and then looked back at her charge. Papillon was still unconscious. "Is she...?"

"The shock's worn off, but her fever's running again," the kendoka stated without so much as another glance at her friend. Her eyes wore a hunted, weary expression that Mamosuke had seen once too many times before. Understanding the look, he put the blankets gingerly on the foot of the bed that Papillon was resting on and put a hand on Ishiko's shoulder. "I'm sure it will turn out well. The great Mouri is here."

"...of course..." Ishiko mumbled softly while burying her face in her hands. She closed her eyes and let the darkness act as a balm for her exhausted eyes. Silver bangs dropped in front of her face. In a wavering voice she muttered something under her breath. Mamosuke looked at Ishiko, whose already pale complexion had been getting steadily worse as the case went on. The woman was strong, she hadn't broken down yet, even given the suspects of the case. He pat the woman's shoulder as he might have done when the two had first met, her eyes wearing the same expression and her face much younger.

It had been so long ago...

* * *

Conan was busy searching the room, trying hard to find something that nobody else seemed to be aware of. The great Kogoro, however, seemed to think that the case was a done case. At that exact moment, three rooms away, there were shouts and screams at coming from a very familiar voice, denying the accusations that were being flung not at her, but at the one that she was so close to.

"He couldn't have done it!" Kazuha's muffled voice managed to break through only in certain places in the wooden walls that surrounded Conan. Odd, he thought, how the voice could even have broken through three rooms worth of walls and still be heard audibly. The reply was muffled, but it undoubtedly came from-the thought struck Conan then. _'Wait...how is that...?'_ The boy glanced at the walls and then tapped them with his knuckles, the pitch was not unusual. _'How is it that Kazuha's voice reaches here when nobody else's does?'_

He began tapping at the walls, from one panel all the way to the end. None of them produced an odd pitch. Annoyed, he ran into the next room and completed the same process. None of them produced an odd pitch. Conan froze. How...? Frustrated, the boy banged his hand on the wall hard enough to make a thump...only to hear yet another thump respond from the other side of the wall. _'Huh?'_ Bright blue eyes looked through non-perscription lenses and gazed at the wall. There was another thump, quite a bit louder this time. Conan was about to try and hit the wall again when Kogoro suddenly burst into the room, his expression annoyed beyond reason.

"Stop banging on the wall, you brat!" he roared. Conan wheeled on his heel to look at him in surprise, his hand stopped in the air, and then another, louder thump accompanied by a muffled voice came from the wall. Both Conan and Kogoro stopped and stared at the wall, Ran, who had been standing behind her father, paled and gave a horrified cry.

"Kyaaa! I-it's the phantom that Ishiko was talking about!" she cried while clinging onto her father. Conan gave her a sharp look. What was she talking about? Ran interpreted the look correctly and shakily started up again. "D-don't you remember sh-she was talking about a phantom earlier..."

_'...!'_ Conan's eyes widened as he looked around the house. It was an old house, old enough to have been...another thump caused Ran to scream. Conan, on the other hand, began banging on the walls rather visciously, trying to find the one that could lead to the source of the banging sounds that nobody seemed to be the source of. _'Just hang on, I'll find it!'_

"Get out of the way!" a familiar voice sounded. Conan barely had time to register the flash of silver from the corner of his eye before he forced himself to jump out of the way. Ishiko raised the large poker and gave a shout at the wall. "Back!" In response to this, there was another thump, but much softer and weaker just as Ishiko gave a kiai and ran with the poker brandished charged at the wall. "Hyah!" She lashed out at the wall, putting several cracks into it. The wall began to splinter. Gray-black eyes narrowed. "Not strong enough..."

The kendoka backed up and charged again with the same shout, and the wall splintered yet again, almost breaking this time. Annoyed, Ishiko didn't bother to back up the third time,only bringing her arms back and giving another shout as she attacked the wall again. "Tsukiiii!" She thrust the poker at the weakest point in the wall, and it gave, splintering and gaving inwards in a relatively large hole. The momentum of Ishiko's final attack added to the force of her shoulder ramming against the weakened barrier at the same time destroyed the panel and she broke through into a dark hallway, unable to stop before the poker sank into the opposite wall with a dull sounding _thunk_. Conan hurried into the newly created entrance after her and was amazed when he saw that it didn't lead into the other room where Kazuha and Kogoro had been arguing earlier.

"Wh-what is this?"

"Mmmph!"

About seven inches to the left of Ishiko's poker embedded in the wall was the face of one Heiji Hattori, his hands bound, mouth gagged, and his legs just as incapacitated as his arms. The tanned boy sent his gaze at the poker and looked to be a little more than relieved that it had not been his head in the way. Ran gave a cry of relief and hurried to find her friend while Conan and Ishiko went to work releasing Heiji from his bindings. When they finally removed the gag he gave a gasp for air.

"Geeze! Ya took long enough!" he exclaimed while rubbing his wrists, which were slightly raw from his earlier attempts to get out. "What the hell was that room? There weren' any _doors_!" Ishiko glanced about and gave a sound of disgust. Heiji glanced at the silver-haired woman. She didn't appear to be extraordinarily surprised at the existance of the room like the others, but she did seem annoyed at where it was placed.

"T'ch..." she hissed while yanking the poker out of the wall. "Well we found our missing person..." the woman muttered darkly while hastily leaving the room without another word. Her feet moved soundlessly along the wooden floor with movements that looked all too acquainted with the flooring. After she left, Heiji glanced around. Kogoro was staring at the boy with his eyes wide, his theory having been shattered. Kazuha, on the other hand, was finally roused over by Ran and hastily ran towards Heiji and grabbed onto him tightly. The boy looked in surprise at the tears that were filling her eyes as she cried into his shirt.

"S-stupid! Stupid Heiji!" she bawled with all her heart.

"I can't help it if I get kidnapped while I'm asl-!" he didn't get to finish the sentence as Kazuha let out a wail of relief with tears that followed after, and suddenly, Heiji lost all his will to make a rebuttal. "...sorry."

And from the entrance of the room, a pair of eyes watched silently, angered at the new development. It was surprising that the boy would have regained consciousness before the case was resolved, and even more than that, the little one was getting to be an impediment...

But little did the owner of the eyes know, Conan had already come to a conclusion about the case.

* * *

Conan had explained the situation to Heiji, who looked at him in a mixture of amazement and hints of anguish.

"You serious? And you haven't done anything about it?" Heiji questioned angrily. Conan figured that his hot-headed friend would raise his voice and hastily made the motion for him to lower it again. The culprit could very well hear them. "I can't believe you practically gave her to the culprit!"

"If I'm right, that person won't do anything to her, and I couldn't help it! I didn't solve it until just a few moments ago!" the boy claimed. "But I don't have any evidence! That's the only thing keeping me from making the case!" he said while scowling. "Nobody's been watching the crime scene because of the attack, so that person might well have erased the evidence I...already..." Conan paused and then looked at his hand-the very one he'd stuck in a puddle of sticky, crimson ooze. His sapphire eyes widened as he realized exactly what he had in his hand. "I've got it! We've gotta hurry and gather everyone!"

"Got it!" Heiji said while hurriedly running out of the room. When he returned with Kogoro, the larger man was quickly knocked out and propped up on a chair and the two hastily went their separate ways to do what they needed to. It wasn't long afterwards that those involved in the case were gathered and looking at Kogoro. Heiji himself had once again vanished, leaving Ran and Kazuha in confusion while Ishiko stood in the back corner of the room, her arms crossed and her eyes fierce, while Mamosuke looked increasingly nervous about the fact that the Osaka detective wasn't there.

"I see that everyone has gathered..." it looked as though Kazuha and Ran were about to say something, but with a little help from Conan's arm, Kogoro raised his hand to stop them. The two did not speak their thoughts. "I've solved this case. The one that killed Torao Tanaka and the one that attacked Akai Papillon..."

"It was that boy, wasn't it?" Mamosuke questioned, his voice harsh. "Kogoro" cleared his throat before answering the question.

"It couldn't have been him," the boy-disguised-as-man stated bluntly. There was a sharp intake of breath and Mamosuke suddenly looked very pale. "Allow me to explain. We found Heiji bound and gagged in a separate room."

"He could have done it himself!"

"Impossible," Ishiko stated from her spot in the back of the room withher eyes shut. "The room was hidden."

"Wh-what?"

"This house was made a long time ago, was it not? Its been very well kept since its creation, even when you bought it, correct?" Conan questioned Mamosuke. The older man nodded dumbly, not entirely sure how that was related to the case. "Allow me to recreate the situation from earlier..." and here there was a sudden black out and the room was engulfed in darkness. There were screams from Ran and Kazuha, who were terrified of the same thing happening again. In moments the lights were on again, and standing before everyone, was one Heiji Hattori. There were amazed stares and gasps. "You see, this house was originally built as a haunted house, and so there are many hidden passages and trick tiles that can be used to move around it quickly...

"The killer must have known this, and used it to manipulate the blackout and set the alibi that was used. You see, while we might say that we did not move at all during the black out or that we grabbed onto another person, it is very easy to say this without being seen..." a pause before he continued. "The killer used this moment to quickly move Heiji out of sight and then used the hidden passages to get to the victim's room and back..."

"And that was when the victim died?" Ran questioned.

"Yes...the murderer first poisoned the victim and seeing that he was still alive, beat him until he could not move before running back..." Kogoro said. "The hits were calculated and precise, just like in Papillon's case, where the killer used the hidden passages to make it seem as though they had not been in her room to begin with. The attacks were not aimed to kill directly, the job was already done...

"As for the reason that Papillon was attacked...it was because she had already figured out the case. She knew who the culprit was and was looking for evidence that could be used against that person. She was silenced before she could speak in hopes that she wouldn't recover until after Heiji had been framed. Of course, that would also mean that the culprit knew Papillon well enough so that she knew what the motive and method was in an instant..."

"So basically, th' killer musta lived in this house long 'nough so that they knew the hidden passages well 'nough to use them. Had ta be really good at controlling their strength and hits, and definitely had ta know Papillon for long enough so that they had no choice but to keep her quiet..." Heiji started up. Kogoro's hand lifted with help from Conan again to point that accusing finger again.

"The only person that could have done it...is you!" he shouted while pointing that damning finger that had picked out so many criminals before. Eyes followed the finger and they all fell onto the same person. A smile graced the lips of the accused.

"Mah, so you figured it out, did you?" Ishiko said while smiling at the finger pointed undoubtedly at her. "Good job, detective...managed to see through it all, didn't you?"

"I-Ishiko...why...? Why would you...of all people...?" Mamosuke questioned. She shot her gray-black eyes onto the man, darted them to the entrance of the room that Papillon was resting in, and then back at the man. She didn't answer, only brushed her silver bangs away from her pale face with that hunted, weary expression once again. "Answer me!"

"You tell me," she replied softly. The woman crossed her arms and looked back at the room, her eyes hard and focused. As if she didn't have a single regret about the crime. No sobstory. No attempt to vindicate herself from the blame that was piling onto her shoulders.

"H-how could you attack Papillon? I thought...I thought she was...!" Kazuha started. "A-and to frame Heiji! How could you?"

"Mah..."

_'That's enough! That's enough!'_

"I...I can't believe that you could do something like that to your friend..." Ran said while looking as though she was about to punch Ishiko for what she had done. The silver-haired kendoka didn't look particularly shaken for being revealed though. In fact, she was still wearing that smile on her face. Heiji lost his temper at her detached demeanor and made a move, though Conan gave a shout for him to stop. He grabbed the front of Ishiko's shirt and gave her a heated look that could have incinerated lesser beings.

"You! She trusted you! If she dies before we can get help...!" he shouted. Ishiko kept her expression calm in spite of the attacks. Her eyes went back to the room that Papillon was resting in, wondering what the caramel haired girl was thinking of at that moment. In spite of everything, Ishiko couldn't help but give a small huff of annoyance at the way she was being treated.

"Mah, I said he managed to figure it out," the woman stated while brushing some hair out of her eyes and easily breaking Heiji's grip with a swift tug on her clothing. Straightening herself out in spite of the hateful eyes on her, she continued. "But I'm really disappointed in you, being so proud in your conclusion..." the woman said. There were expressions questioning her, what she meant. Disbelief filled the room. What could the woman possibly be talking about so aloofly? She sent her gaze straight back at Kogoro and opened her mouth to speak...

...and two words shattered Conan's deductions completely.

* * *

A/N: Muahaha! I updated out of a need to update for once. I didn't bring the documents for revamping over to Taiwan, so for a while I'm going to pretend like I didn't say I was going to revamp the first few chapters. The next chapter will be the conclusion of this mystery, at last! After over a year of procrastination!

I'm actually really surprised that people are still putting this story on alert considering the low quality of the first few chapters and how OC centric it is, but I guess that I can take you along for the ride that I've got planned out if you're still reading along!


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